From 11 April, women in France will be banned from wearing the niqab – the full-face Muslim veil – in any public place. Amelia Hill brings together two prominent British Muslim women to discuss the controversial move.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: I don't agree with [the veil] at all and am alarmed at how quickly it is taking off. Just five years ago, people told me that just a few women wore it. Now it's an epidemic.

Salma Yaqoob: I separate my personal, emotional reactions from the right of other people to make their own decisions. I don't personally like it. I can understand why some people are uncomfortable about it. But I'm even more uncomfortable about taking that choice away. My mother didn't wear a hijab and was hostile when I began to. But when my sister was in her early 20s, she began wearing a full burqa. I was very uncomfortable with that, but she saw it as an expression of her spirituality. Now she doesn't wear the burqa. It was part of her journey. What's fundamental to me is that no one should dictate to anyone else whether to cover or uncover.

YAB: This relativism is my big problem with what you've just said. The faith does not demand this. This is a Wahhabi project, funded by the Saudis, which has been very successfully planted here. I don't want to ban the veil in the French way. The French are racist. They're doing it for the wrong reasons. But they're doing the right thing. In Britain, I really think we should be entitled to say that, in public spaces and public jobs, this choice is not a choice. We can't all choose to wear what we want.

SY: What you're saying is quite dangerous and illiberal. This discussion gets stifled because imposing interpretations makes people defensive. This is not a decontextualised conversation.

YAB: You're right: it's not decontextualised. For 10 years, I have even argued against the hijab because these things have meanings about what women are and what women do. We should think about those meanings.

SY: But Yasmin, you're saying, "I don't like it and so I'm going to deny you the right to do it." What do we value about our society? We value the freedom that allows us to wear what we want. I feel it's highly patronising – not to mention, anti-feminist – to take away that choice, or to say that a woman is only acceptable to you if she dresses in the way you approve of.

YAB: But the veil has got such implications. It's saying a woman's hair or face or body, if I look at them, are dangerous for her modesty. It's such an insult to men: what does it say about them? And it says that you are preserving yourself for a man. Only unpacking yourself for him. These implications are serious for feminists. It's not just me saying, "I don't like it." It's saying, as a feminist, that I can't stand the implications of "Woman as Evil".

SY: You're projecting your one extreme interpretation on to everyone else. You must allow that, while that may be the reaction the veil provokes in you, it may be totally different in others. When I started wearing the hijab, it didn't have anything to do with that. It was about not wanting to be judged in terms of my appearance. By bringing state laws in, you impose just one interpretation and deny freedom to all others. What worries me is the complete obsession with that has blown up over the veil, on both sides of the argument.

YAB: It's the [veil's] sexualisation of women that I can't bear; the idea that women are a kind of evil presence.

SY: Yes, but how do you bring about real changes and make people think? You don't do it by slapping down laws and making women defensive. Women's emancipation happened because the discourse of equality was internalised. If you shut down the discourse, people become hyper-defensive.

YAB: I totally accept what you're saying. What if we said: in public life and jobs and spaces, we must see your face? This prevention of human interaction is causing apartheid between some Muslim women and the rest of womanhood. It's an implicit message that you are contaminated. They celebrated Eid for the first time near my house on Ealing Common recently. I thought, how fantastic, and tried to join in but was shut out because I wasn't covered.

SY: How did that make you feel?

YAB: I was furious. They have no right to exclude me.

SY: What if you were covered and they had said the opposite? Would excluding you like that have fostered dialogue? Did you go away and think, ''They excluded me and, therefore, I must be doing something wrong"? A woman who's told she can't wear something isn't going to feel encouraged to take part in dialogue.

YAB: If you've been dialoguing, why hasn't this epidemic stopped?

SY: Don't use words like that. It's dangerous.

YAB: I'm sorry, but I see it as an epidemic. My mother's generation went for a religion that gave them personal freedoms. They threw off the veil and now there's a return to it. There's brainwashing going on, and we're sitting around talking about choice.

SY: Come to visit me in Birmingham, Yasmin, and you'll see choice. You'll see women who do wear the veil, women who used to wear it and now don't, women who never have but might in the future. No doubt, there will be some who had family pressures, but the vast majority are in a hostile society where the veil is not welcomed. Wearing the veil is not an easy thing to do in today's society, Yasmin. The idea that anybody that wears it is either a passive victim of family or is making an anti-western comment is wrong. It's only when society becomes less tolerant that it becomes an issue.

YAB: Why should society be tolerant of a mark that women are evil temptresses or packages whose sexuality has to be controlled?

SY: It could also be seen as a statement the other way. Some women find it liberating and emancipatory to uncover themselves – and some find it oppressive. A ban is saying that Muslims don't belong. It's not about encouraging a sense of belonging, forging multicultural relationships. It's the opposite. It's a thinly veiled disguise for patronising, for racism. This isn't about emancipating women. It's doing the very opposite. It doesn't promote cohesion and respect – it promotes fear.

YAB: Don't talk to me about belonging. None of the Muslim girls in my daughter's class would come to her birthday party because I don't cover myself. There is self-segregation going on and this garment is a symbol of that.

Amelia Hill: Is the ban more about cynical politics, or genuine concern about what sort of society and modernity we want?

SY: I think the French politicians are being disingenuous. They're trying to get back the rightwing electorate by having this sort of rhetoric. This is about cynical politics. I think the strength of this country is that we don't impose in that way, it allows for genuine discussion, dialogue and debate. [In France] it is not a debate among equals: a ban will make people feel more isolated. That's not creating an engaged citizenship. It's the very opposite: it's making lots of people feel despondent and helpless.