I'm not that great at being unemotional about it, either, though I think I've mostly started channeling what I may be feeling to bitching about Sarkozy. Which, he wasn't always so 'ban-the-burqa!' crazy, but even back when he was being pretty conciliatory toward the Muslim community - I remember this story of two hijabi college students talking to him before a speech, and how he later made these comments like, "It's surprising such smart women would wear the voile!" and uh, THANKS FOR THE PATERNALISM, JACKASS.

And there is something to be said for the bottom line that... none of it ended up mattering that much in terms of school attendance or issues surrounding it. Catholic schools got something of a bump from Muslim enrollment, but that's about it, because once it was passed, no one actually cared that much. Which doesn't make it not problematic, but what kind of goes unsaid in a lot of these discussions is that even with all the crime/racism/poverty issues, the Muslim population in France is the most integrated in Europe - higher percentages of the Muslim population identify with French national identity than Muslim populations in any other European country. The percentage of Muslims attend religious services regularly is not significantly different from the population as whole. Covering is a nebulous issue in Islam anyway, let alone the identity issues French Muslims contend with and the reality that most people are in fact more interested in making sure their children get a good education. When these "ethnic riots" happen, the participants are almost entirely French-born youth who aren't raging against the French structure, but protesting the sense that they are being excluded from it. So regardless, France generally (Muslims and non-Muslims) is going to have to find a way to deal with that.