Abayas, loose-fitting full-length robes worn by some Muslim women, have been outlawed in France’s state-run schools from the start of the new school year next week.
This was announced by Education Minister Gabriel Attal.
The BBC reports that Attal told France’s TF1 TV: ‘When you walk into a classroom, you shouldn’t be able to identify the pupils’ religion just by looking at them. I have decided that the abaya could no longer be worn in schools.’
The move comes after months of debate over the wearing of abayas in French schools.
France has a strict ban on religious signs in state schools and government buildings, arguing that they violate secular laws.
Wearing a headscarf has been banned since 2004 in state-run schools. France has enforced a strict ban on religious signs at schools since the 19th Century, including Christian symbols such as large crosses, in an effort to purge any Catholic influence from public education. It has been updating the law over the years to reflect its changing population. The Muslim headscarf and Jewish kippa are not to be worn at school.
According to the BBC, abayas were however being increasingly worn in schools, leading to a political divide over them, with right-wing parties pushing for a ban, and those on the left voicing concerns for the rights of Muslim women and girls.
Attal is reported as saying: ‘Secularism means the freedom to emancipate oneself through school.’ He argued that the abaya is ‘a religious gesture, aimed at testing the resistance of the republic toward the secular sanctuary that school must constitute’.
The BBC says the announcement is the first major policy decision by Gabriel Attal, who was appointed France’s education minister by President Emmanuel Macron this year at the age of 34.