"France, the originator of the burqa ban, has done more than any other Western nation over the past decade to resist face coverings in public."

"But as the country begins to emerge from its coronavirus lockdown Monday, masks are mandatory.... 'If you are Muslim and you hide your face for religious reasons, you are liable to a fine and a citizenship course where you will be taught what it is to be "a good citizen,"' said Fatima Khemilat, a fellow at the Political Science Institute of Aix-en-Provence. 'But if you are a non-Muslim citizen in the pandemic, you are encouraged and forced as a "good citizen" to adopt "barrier gestures" to protect the national community. We see this asymmetrical reading of the same behavior — covering the face, depending on the context and the person who performs it — as arbitrary at best, discriminatory at worst.'... 'In free and democratic societies . . . no exchange between people, no social life is possible, in public space, without reciprocity of look and visibility: people meet and establish relationships with their faces uncovered,' declared a parliamentary study prepared during debate of the 2010 law, which took effect the following year. 'The concealment of the face in public space has the effect of breaking social ties,' the report continues. 'It manifests the refusal of "living together."'... 'It’s not a hypocrisy, it’s a schizophrenia at the end,' said Olivier Roy, a French scholar of secularism and Islam. 'Which is to say that it’s about the problem of Islam. If you cover your face for Islam, it’s not the republic. If you cover your face for a reason not to do with Islam, it’s acceptable.'"

From "France mandates masks to control the coronavirus. Burqas remain banned" (WaPo).