France’s Education Minister announced that pupils will be banned from wearing abayas, loose-fitting full-length robes worn by female Muslims, in state-run schools, starting from 4 September.
“When you walk into a classroom, you shouldn’t be able to identify the pupils’ religion just by looking at them,” Education Minister Gabriel Attal told France’s TF1 TV, adding: “I have decided that the abaya could no longer be worn in schools.”
“Secularism means the freedom to emancipate oneself through school,” Attal told TF1, arguing the abaya is “a religious gesture, aimed at testing the resistance of the republic toward the secular sanctuary that school must constitute.”
The minister added that he would give clear rules at the national level before schools open after the summer break.
Meanwhile, the left-wing parties voiced concerns for the rights of Muslim women and girls.
In 2010, France banned the wearing of full-face veils in public which provoked anger in France’s five million-strong Muslim community.
The European country 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 curb any Catholic influence from public education.
