France has announced a ban on Muslim girls wearing the abaya – an Islamic robe designed to be loose-fitting and cover one’s body– on the grounds that the clothing contravenes the nation’s secular-based education. The ban will come into force on September 4.
“When you walk into a classroom, you shouldn’t be able to identify the pupils’ religion just by looking at them,” stated the French Education Minister, Gabriel Attal, over the weekend.
“Secularism means the freedom to emancipate oneself through school… [the abaya is] a religious gesture, aimed at testing the resistance of the republic toward the secular sanctuary that school must constitute,” Attal added.
The French government has already banned headscarves in public schools for nearly 20 years, citing similar reasoning. The country has also made the then-unprecedented move among Western nations in 2010 to ban the wearing of full-face veils.
The prohibition of religious symbols does not merely apply to Islam as Christian symbols, such as crosses, have been banned in French schools since the 19th century.
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