Al Qaeda has vowed "dreadful revenge" on France over suggestions that France may ban the burqa. The burqa is the full-length woman's dress that leaves only a small gap in the facial covering, which is often a mesh net for breathing and seeing where she is going.

French MPs have now set up a commission to decide if it should be made illegal for women to hide their faces in public. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has endorsed the move.

Al Qaeda's North African network have called on French Muslims to react with "the utmost hostility". They see this as a good rallying point to exploit the anger of the alienated unemployed young Muslims in France. The burqa has now become a focal point in Islamic "identity" politics - the new trend for people to align themselves over particular "identity" issues (rather than the old issues of class, political parties and nationality)

The French government have their own official brand of "identity" politics Two centuries ago, as a result of the Revolution, France saw itself as a modern, secular state. It was then concerned to separate the state from a Christian identity. Now it is concerned about also separating itself from an Islamic one.

France has about five million Muslims - the largest single Islamic population in Europe. Given the recent history of riots, France has had some problems in integrating the younger Muslims.

In 2004 France banned school students from wearing veils and other religious symbols as part of the government's attempt to defend secularism. Last year the country's highest court refused to grant French citizenship to a Moroccan woman who wears a burqa on the grounds that her Muslim practices were incompatible with French gender equality and secularism laws.

The French state and Al Qaeda are on a collision course. There is no easy way to reconcile these opposing views.

The burqa is like so many other so-called "Islamic practices": activities conducted by some Muslims which are not specifically laid down in the Koran but which have been acquired over the years by some adherents. The practices owe more to their local society context and traditions than to the faith itself.

The Prophet expected his followers to dress modestly. He did not specifically state that it had to be a burqa. (Indeed there are similar ideas in Judaism and Christianity on appropriate clothing).

Some Muslim women claim that wearing the burqa is a human rights issue - it is their right to choose. I would have more sympathy for this viewpoint if there were a universal right to choose among all Muslim women in all Muslim societies. They tend to get more rights generally in modern Western secular societies than in traditional Islamic ones eg Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia (where they even have little right to choose over whether they can drive a car).

I encourage Muslim women to continue their struggle for human rights within their faith. Women have transformed many parts of Judaism and Christianity - now it ought to be Islam that gets modernized.

The really big struggles for Islam are within the Islamic world - and not between the Islamic world and the West. The Islamic world has to come to terms with all the changes sweeping around the world, including the status of women. The West has little direct role in this overarching struggle - it can only hope to minimize being collateral damage as the various factions struggle against each other

Meanwhile, the French issue of the burqa is a sideshow. But we know that some "symbolic" identity politics issues can certainly motivate a crowd and create a controversy.

First, the issue enables Al Qaeda to rally the troops and remind Muslims that it is still active. It hopes that young Muslims will think globally and act locally - and perform localized acts of violence in France.

Second, the issue enables the French state to play a role in the so-called "war on terror" by being seen to crack down on Islamic fundamentalism. It also enables the state to reaffirm traditional French secular values.

Finally, the issue is also a "wedge" issue for the human rights movement: should it support a woman's right to choose what she wears in a Western society - or should it support the move to impose gender equality and secularism laws?

There is enough here to keep the issue going for a while.

Keith Suter