It’s not prohibited. Some people would like to prohibit it though, but there’s no prohibition yet. Even the government officials over there are divided over it. The most they’ll do about it now is to have some study on it. Here in Quebec, Canada, they had some similar study done and spent $5 million on it. Among their conclusions was that they shouldn’t stop anyone from wearing hijab/niqab etc.
I’ve seen similar attitudes in both east and west. The criticism for it will be there both among non-Muslims, and as you can see plenty of in this topic or any topic where niqaab/burqa are discussed, even some Muslims are critical of it. From my experience, in the west most people just go about their own business and don’t care much about what others are doing. For the number of westerners who criticized my wife for wearing it or me because they assumed I’m forcing her to wear it, there were many more who appreciated her wearing it once she explained it to them. In fact, I’d say that the single group who criticizes it the most would be Indian and Pakistani aunties.
That has also been my observation. I found that Muslims themselves are more worried about this (or any other practice of Muslims for that matter) than non-Muslims.
Why is that? My wife shows her face to a woman, and for less than a second and in a secluded area. Alhamdulillah, it’s never been a problem.
So what exactly is this supposed to tell us?