Getting your player ready...
PARIS — President Nicolas Sarkozy declared Monday that the Islamic burka is not welcome in France, branding the face-covering, body-length gown as a symbol of subservience that suppresses women’s identities.
But there was a mixed message in the tough words: an admission that the country’s long-held principle of ethnic assimilation — which insists that newcomers shed their traditions and adapt to French culture — is failing because it doesn’t give immigrants and their French-born children a fair chance.
