The French government has refused to grant citizenship to a foreign national on the grounds that he forced his wife to wear the full Islamic veil.

The man, whose current nationality was not given, needed citizenship to settle in the country with his French wife.

OK, their country they let in who the hell they like. But I find two things weird:

1. How did they know he forced her? Isn’t the State going in to a private relationship just a little too deeply?

2. If she doesn’t want to wear it why did she marry him in the first place?

Unless it is an arranged marriage against her will? If that is the case isn’t forced marriage the bigger issue here? If it is they could just annul the marriage and tell him to piss off. It may mean she needs protection from family and religious bigots, but that’s a small price to pay for keeping someone from being imprisoned in a veil.

I’m not convinced at all about France’s banning of the full Islamic veil, I’m even more concerned if it gives the State the opportunity to dig in to the deepest recesses of our married lives when no complaint has been made. But I like the idea of people being forced in to marriages against their will and then made to wear clothes that effectively imprison them even less.

I really don’t care if it religious or cultural, we have to find a way of ending this coercion and refusing to grant citizenship to those that do the coercing seems like a good start.