You are deflecting from my major point, Alceste, and the point many here are making, which is the  double standard of the Left, which feels perfectly comfortable making sweeping generalisations and accusations demonizing its political opponents, while refusing to be critical of groups such as conservative Muslims, such as by describing the veil as simply as "an innocuous piece of clothing, like the scarves our grandmothers wore".

It is not, which is why it is controversial among Muslims themselves. When it is worn by an educated, urban, westernized woman, it has meaning besides "just a social custom", and is not innocuous.