PARIS: French schools sent dozens of girls home for refusing to remove their abayas – an over-garment from the shoulders to the feet worn by Muslim women – on the first day of the school year, a government minister said Tuesday (Sep 5).
Defying a ban on the Muslim dress, nearly 300 girls showed up Monday morning wearing an abaya, Gabriel Attal told the BFM broadcaster.
Most agreed to change out of the dress, but 67 refused and were sent home, he said.
The government announced last month it was banning the abaya in schools, saying it broke the rules on secularism in education that have already seen Muslim headscarves banned on the grounds they constitute a display of religious affiliation.
The move gladdened the political right but the hard-left argued it represented an affront to civil liberties.
Attal said the girls refused entry were given a letter addressed to their families saying that “secularism is not a constraint, it is a liberty”.
If they showed up at school again wearing the dress there would be a “new dialogue”, the minister said.
Late Monday, President Emmanuel Macron defended the controversial measure, saying there was a “minority” in France who “hijack a religion and challenge the republic and secularism”, leading to the “worst consequences” such as the murder three years ago of teacher Samuel Paty for showing Mohamed caricatures during a civics education class.
“We cannot act as if the terrorist attack, the murder of Samuel Paty, had not happened,” he said in an interview with You Tube channel HugoDecrypte.
An association representing Muslims has filed a motion with the State Council, France’s highest court for complaints against state authorities, for an injunction against the ban on the abaya and the qamis, its equivalent dress for men.
The Action for the Rights of Muslims (ADM) motion is to be examined later Tuesday.
A law introduced in March 2004 banned “the wearing of signs or outfits by which students ostensibly show a religious affiliation” in schools.
This includes large Christian crosses, Jewish kippas and Islamic headscarves.
Unlike headscarves, abayas occupied a grey area and had faced no outright ban until now.
SCHOOL UNIFORM TRIAL
Attal, who is Education Minister, also said on Tuesday he was in favour of trialling school uniforms or a dress code.
Uniforms have not been obligatory in French schools since 1968 but have regularly come back on the political agenda, often pushed by conservative and far-right politicians.
Attal told BFM TV he would provide a timetable in autumn for carrying out a trial run of uniforms with any schools that agree to participate.
“I don’t think that the school uniform is a miracle solution that solves all problems related to harassment, social inequalities or secularism,” he said.
“We must go through experiments, try things out” in order to promote debate, he said.
France’s strict brand of secularism, known as laicite, is a sensitive topic regularly triggering political tension in the country.
For some, wearing a uniform means equality and erasing differences of social status and wealth. For others it is a debate that is not needed and is distracting from more serious issues such as discipline and harassment.
In January 2023 President Macron’s wife Brigitte told Le Parisien newspaper in an interview that a school uniform “erases differences, we save time – it’s time-consuming to choose how to dress in the morning – and money – compared to brands”.
She recalled wearing a uniform for 15 years, a navy blue skirt and sweater as a student, telling the paper she took it well.
“So I am in favour of wearing a school uniform, but with a simple and not dull outfit.”
Source: CNA
