France will not allow women to wear abayas in schools: Minister

 

France will not allow women to wear abayas in schools: Minister. French Education Minister Gabriel Attal said the country should ban women from wearing abayas in schools because they violate the country's strict secular laws and consider the garment worn by some Muslims a "religious gesture", as the decision drew mixed reactions from observers.

 

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Attal told TF1 television: "It will no longer be possible to wear the abaya at school.

He also said he would provide "clear rules at a national level to school principals" before returning to classrooms nationwide from September 4.

According to AFP, she pushed for a ban on the right and the far right, which the left claimed would encroach on civil liberties.

The decision comes months after a long dispute over the wearing of abayas in schools, where women are not allowed to wear headscarves.

There have been reports of the increasing wearing of abayas in schools and of tension in schools due to the issue between teachers and parents.

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"Secularism means the freedom to emancipate oneself through the school," Attal said, describing the abaya as "a religious gesture that aims to test the republic's resistance to the secular sanctuary that the school must create."

He argued, "If you walk into a classroom, you must not be able to identify the religion of the students by looking at them."

A March 2004 law banned "the wearing of signs or clothing by which students appear to show religious affiliation" in schools.

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These include large crosses, Jewish kippahs, and Islamic headscarves.

Unlike headscarves, abayas - a long, baggy garment worn over modest clothing in accordance with the Islamic faith - have occupied a gray area and until now faced no outright ban.

However, the Ministry of Education already issued a circular on this issue in November last year.

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It described the abaya as one of a group of garments that could be banned if they were "worn in a manner that would openly indicate religious affiliation". Circular scarves and long skirts fall into the same category.

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Attal's predecessor as education minister, Pap Ndiaye, who was approached about the matter by head teachers' unions, responded that he did not want to "publish endless catalogs specifying dress lengths".

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At least one union leader, Bruno Bobkiewicz, welcomed Attal's announcement on Sunday.

"The instructions were not clear, now they are and we welcome it," said Bobkiewicz, secretary general of NPDEN-UNSA, which represents the director.

The news was also welcomed by Eric Ciotto, head of the opposition right-wing Republican Party.

"We have called several times to ban abayas in our schools," he said. But Clementine Autain of the left-wing opposition party France Unbowed condemned what she described as "clothing policing".

Attal's announcement was "unconstitutional" and against the core principles of French secular values, she argued - and symptomatic of the government's "obsessive rejection of Muslims".

Barely back from the summer break, she said President Emmanuel Macron's administration was already trying to compete with Marine Le Pen's far-right National Assembly.

 

The CFCM, a national body bringing together many Muslim associations, has said that the clothes themselves are not a "religious sign".

The announcement is the 34-year-old minister's first major move since his promotion this summer to handle the hugely contentious education portfolio.

Along with Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, 40, he is seen as a rising star who could play an important role after Macron steps down in 2027.

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