I’ve never been a big fan of the French – surprise! – and haven’t gotten over the Dreyfus case, not to mention the Vichy regime, the French support of various horrific Arab states, nor, most recently, the French cranes I saw in the Baghdad skyline as U.S. troops took the city, as well as the other artifacts of vigorous French involvement in Saddam’s tyranny. Nonetheless, this is something of a different issue, and one that much of liberal Europe has embraced with enthusiasm.

From The New York Times: … last month, France’s highest administrative court upheld a decision to deny citizenship to Ms. (Faiza) Silmi, 32, on the ground that her “radical” practice of Islam was incompatible with French values like equality of the sexes.

The case has sharpened the focus on the delicate balance between the tradition of Republican secularism and the freedom of religion guaranteed under the French Constitution, and how that balance may be shifting. Four years ago, a law banned religious clothing in public schools. Earlier this year, a court in Lille annulled a marriage on request of a Muslim husband whose wife had lied about being a virgin. (The government later demanded a review of the court decision.)

So far, citizenship has been denied on religious grounds in France only when applicants were believed to be close to fundamentalist groups.

The ruling on Ms. Silmi has received almost unequivocal support across the political spectrum, including among many Muslims. Fadela Amara, the French minister for urban affairs, called Ms. Silmi’s niqab “a prison” and a “straitjacket.”

“It is not a religious insignia but the insignia of a totalitarian political project that promotes inequality between the sexes and is totally lacking indemocracy,” Ms. Amara, herself a practicing Muslim of Algerian descent, told the newspaper Le Parisien in an interview published Wednesday.

François Hollande, the leader of the opposition Socialist Party, called the ruling “a good application of the law,” while Jacques Myard, a conservative lawmaker elected in the district where Ms. Silmi lives, demanded that face-covering veils be outlawed.

The Silmis live by a literalist interpretation of the Koran, and that is the problem. Apart from the notion of the demands of religion taking precedence over the requirements of the state, the French are offended by the subservient nature of the fundamentalist male-female relationship. These concerns take priority over the right to free expression of religion.

“She has adopted a radical practice of her religion, incompatible with essential values of the French community, particularly the principle of equality of the sexes,” declared the Council of State, the judicial institution which rules on such disputes.

Again, The Times: Emmanuelle Prada-Bordenave, the government commissioner who reported to the Council of State, said Ms. Silmi’s interviews with social services revealed that “She lives in total submission to her male relatives. She seemsto find this normal, and the idea of challenging it has never crossed her mind.”

While Ms.Silmi disagrees with the idea that she is under her husband’s thumb, she told The Times that she decided to wear the veil, ordinarily worn on the Arabian Peninsula, because, and I quote: … in her eyes her traditional Moroccan djelaba — a long flowing garment with a head scarf — was not modest enough. “I don’t like to draw men’s looks,” she said. “I want to belong to my husband and my husband only.”

France is far from the only European nation uneasy with the growing number of Muslims and their fundamentalist practices within their borders. Denmark bars judges from wearing religious garments. In Great Britain last year, a teacher wearing a veil was ordered home. Several Belgian cities have enacted bans on burqas, the total body covering.

M’hammed Henniche, of the Union of Muslim Associations in the Seine-St.-Denis district north of Paris, says he fears that the French ruling may open the door to what he considers ever more arbitrary interpretations of what constitutes “radical” Islam.

“What is it going to be tomorrow?” he asked. “The annual pilgrimage to Mecca? The daily prayer?

“This sets a dangerous precedent,” he said. “Religion, so far as it is personal, should be kept out of these decisions.”

This won’t solve the problem for France, already home to about five million Muslims, an estimated three out of five of those French citizens. The majority of the Muslims are already separated, physically, politically, and philosophically, from the mainstream of French society, and the gulf has prompted all sorts of problems, from radicalism to riots. And though the criteria for granting French citizenship already include “assimilation,” which focuses on how well the candidate speaks French, President Nicolas Sarkozy has lately stressed the importance of “integration” into French life. The Times relates how, “Part of his tougher immigration policy is new legislation to require foreigners who want to join their families to take an exam on French values as well as the French language before leaving their countries.”

For his part, Mr. Silmi, with a beard and (according to the newspaper) a permanently bruised forehead from praying 5 times a day, “dreams of moving his family to Morocco or Saudi Arabia.”

The Muslim problem in Europe is, essentially, one of demographics. As Italians and Germansand Spaniards have fewer children, the Muslim population is exploding. Belgium, to take just one example, is already 11% Muslim. As seen from their perspective, how can France (or any of these nations) remain truly French if its population does not adopt all that it means to be French, from traditions to beliefs to practices to habits of every variety?

The quicker among you will see a parallel with the U.S., though substituting Mexicans for Muslims. However, the comparison is neither fair nor true, because the U.S. is not France, a nation that is so intent on managing a rather rigid idea of what it means to be French that it outlaws the word “hamburger” and wants to ban American movies. The brilliance and glory of America is that we are always changing and reinventing our nation without changing or sacrificing our underlying principles and values. We are capable of incorporating new ideas, new foods, new styles, new music, new talents, and the new people who bring these to our shores, while simultaneously inculcating those new people with the essential American faith, and turn them into real Americans.

The French will never grasp that. We must never forget it.