The Ban

The BBC has an interesting story on the drive in France to ban the burka. An excerpt:

It is difficult to isolate where this push for banning the burka comes from. Mr Cope said it had the support of 74% of French people. What people say is that as Muslims have become more visible across Europe, there is a concern that they are pushing a separate identity that would lead to parallel, not integrated, communities.

One academic I spoke to said that liberals had not expected, in backing multiculturalism, that newcomers would arrive and live apart from the society they had joined. President Sarkozy has spoken of "this feeling of sharing less and less a common culture, a common imagination and a common morality". In his view, becoming French means "adhering to a form of civilisation, values and behaviour".

Emphasis added

By tossing their ancient religion and culture under the bus in favor of newfangled green creeds amounting to neo-paganism, and libertine lifestyles to boot, the French (along with most European nations) stand defenseless in the face of confident Muslims who know very well who they are and what they believe. Now, playing catch-up, the French are scrambling to stem the tide by passing laws...but is it too late? After all, it's easy to pass a law or two, it offers back-slapping, feckless politicians a sense of accomplishment and relevance; but it's much harder to restore a sense of culture and the desire to pass it on to one's progeny.