Bye bye, burqas

France (home to Europe's biggest Muslim population) has officially banned women from wearing full-face veils (for instance, the burqa and the niqab) in public places. Other European countries have drawn up bans on the full-face veils but France is the first to risk stirring social tensions by actually putting one into practice. But the burqa isn't really necessary because it's actually more a part of cultural heritage than religious practice, and only around 2,000 women, from a total French Muslim population estimated at between four and six million, wear the full-face veils that are traditional in parts of Arabia and South Asia. The ban does not extend to head coverings that still show the face, and I think this ban is only fair because if even non-Muslim women have to wear head coverings in certain Arab countries, then those coverings can be banned in the West.