Niqab While Driving?

The French continue their crackdown on concealing the face for religious reasons (or is it more a protest against the rights of a secular state?):

via Reuters

A 31-year-old French woman has been fined for wearing a full veil while driving, a further sign of France’s effort to clamp down on the niqab, the Islamic veil that leaves only the eyes uncovered and that President Nicolas Sarkozy says demeans women.

The unidentified woman told LCI television on Friday that the police had stopped her last month while she was driving in the city of Nantes, near the Atlantic coast of France. She was wearing a black niqab, and the police handed her a $29 fine, saying that her clothing posed a safety risk to her driving.

“My eyes were not covered,” she said. “I can see just like you, and my field of vision was not obstructed.” She said she would appeal the decision.

The incident has now reached France’s ministerial level.

On Friday, the interior minister asked the immigration minister to look into revoking the French nationality of the driver’s husband, who he said was a polygamist married to four women, with whom he had a total of 12 children.

But, it’s not about whether you can see, but whether you can be seen.

Here, in the US, most states have laws against concealing your identity in public, but apparently that’s not the case in France.