France is divided over Nicolas Sarkozy’s recent statement that the burka is not welcome in France. In a speech to legislators he said:

We cannot accept to have in our country women who are prisoners behind netting, cut off from all social life, deprived of identity. … That is not the idea that the French republic has of women’s dignity. … The burka is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience. … It will not be welcome on the territory of the French republic.

In 2004, France  banned the headscarf in state schools. Almost 60 French legislators recently formed a parliamentary inquiry to examine the spread of the burka as “a breach of individual freedoms on our national territory.”

Sarkozy’s view stands counter to Obama’s. In Obama’s recent speech in Cairo, he spoke on the issue of women’s rights but emphasized women’s rights to choose more traditional roles:

I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal. … I do not believe that women must make the same choices as men in order to be equal, and I respect those women who choose to live their lives in traditional roles. But it should be their choice.

While its measures towards Muslims seem to get the most press, it’s worth noting that this stems from a trenchant commitment to secularism, which BBC writer Henri Astier calls “the closest thing the French have to a state religion.” France did not just ban headscarves. It banned all conspicuous religious apparel, including Sikh turbans, Jewish skullcaps and Christian crosses.