France is in for the long haul. Two separate court cases
highlight a country rift with religious-political strife. In June,
a Muslim woman saw her marriage annulled when it came to light that she had lied about
being a virgin. While feminists were outraged, the rule of that
land states that an annulment can be granted if an "essential
quality" has been lied about. More recently, a woman was denied French citizenship because she dons the
traditional Muslim Burqa. According the the BBC, the woman,
who lives with her French husband and three children, reports to
have "never challenged the country's fundamental values." The
French Urban Affairs Minister thinks otherwise. Humorously, in both
cases, the French government protected women's rights by doing
exactly the opposite of what the women in the cases would have
preferred. What a tangled web we weave.