Practicality: The safety of the traveling public takes priority over the whims of those who would drive half-blind for the sake of a supremacist ideology. “Driver wearing Islamic face veil fined in France,” by Pierre-Baptiste Vanzini for the Associated Press, April 23:
NANTES, France – A woman driver wearing an Islamic face veil has been fined by French police for not having a clear field of vision. The fine was small, but it garnered big attention Friday and may illustrate what is to come as the president pushes to outlaw the veils nationwide.
Traffic police in the western city of Nantes fined the 31-year-old woman euro22 ($29) in early April, her lawyer said. The fine was based on a rule that says drivers should have freedom of movement and a sufficient field of vision, lawyer Jean-Michel Pollono said.
Only Al Pacino gets to drive blind. And only in that one movie.
Pollono said Friday that he is protesting the decision, saying a veil is no different from a motorcycle helmet in terms of hindrance to vision.
The driver gave a news conference Friday — while wearing the niqab veil, which covers the entire face except for the eyes — and expressed “a feeling of injustice” over the incident.
“I didn’t commit any infraction,” said the driver, who declined to give her name. “I see just as well as you. … I have driven like this for nine years. I’ve not had any problems.”
The driver is French by nationality. The lawyer said she had never been stopped until now, after months of recent parliamentary discussion and government talk about possibly banning the veils.
But wait, there’s more:
As the case escalated in the media spotlight, Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux’s office said he wrote to his counterpart at the Immigration Ministry to request a study into whether the woman’s Algerian-born husband could be stripped of French nationality for suspected illegal behavior.
In the letter to Immigration Minister Eric Besson, Hortefeux said the man was suspected of polygamy and fraud of state social services by allegedly benefiting from state financial aid for single parents paid to each of his four wives — all of whom wear veils. An Interior Ministry official provided details of the letter, though not the husband’s name, to The Associated Press….