In its Grand Chamber decision, the European Court of Human Rights (the "Court") held that a French law dating back to 2010, which prohibits the concealment of one's face in public spaces, does not violate the European Convention of Human Rights (the "Convention"). The law was understood by many to have been aimed at women of the Islamic faith who choose to wear face-concealing attire, including the niqab (face veil) and the burqa. The applicant in the case, a French born Muslim woman who wears the niqab and burqa, alleged that the law impermissibly infringed on her right to privacy, religious freedom, and her right to be free from government discrimination. The Court disagreed, taking notice of its earlier jurisprudence that the public manifestation of religion -- as opposed to the right to hold a religious belief -- was not immune from government regulation. It further noted its doctrine of "margin of appreciation," granting governments considerable leeway in their regulation of public manifestations of religion. It then held, under its proportionality analysis, that the French government's contention that the law was justified on national security grounds was without merit. However, the Court held that the government's contention that the law was justified via the aim of ensuring that citizens would be imbued with a sense of "living together" had merit. The Court thus found no incompatibility between the law and the Convention. Some of the dissenting opinions in the case took issue with the Court's privacy and "living together" analysis, reasoning that the right to privacy included one's right to willingly withdraw from public life or partake in it in ways that would minimize social interaction.