I promise you that I reread that article before I commented about it, and we can all plainly see that 1% of the discussion is about balaclavas and 99% of it is about the effect of the law on Muslims.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_law_on_secularity_and_c... is also relevant.
To be fair, maybe the article is that way because it was written by non-Frenchmen with non-French sensibilities. I understand that French attitudes about religion and assimilation are different from American ones, and that I'm missing all sorts of other context besides. My "oh deary me how troubling" reaction probably isn't worth very much, and in any case my broader point is that I'm not advocating jumping to conclusions or boycotting France or whatever else.
But at the same time, if you want to call it "misinformed" to worry about the law's effect on religious minorities, that comes across as pretty one-sided in its own right.
