Pupils will be banned from wearing abayas, loose-fitting full-length robes worn by some Muslim women, in France’s state-run schools, the education minister has said.
The rule will be applied as soon as the new school year starts on 4 September.
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.
Wow. As a religious minority it’s incredibly depressing to see how many people on here support this violation of religious liberty.
Yeah I agree with you. It’s one thing to say the school can’t promote a religious creed to the pupils, it is another to limit self-expression of dress when it doesn’t impact other students
French secularism is way different than what americans have, it is pretty unique. Remember it
Really? What’s it like?
It is less about religious freedom but more about the fact that no religion should exist in state run places like school. It is quite complicated, you might want to google it. For example american stuff like swearing on a bible thing, even if there is a non religious alternative, would be extremely controversial in france
The US over here was supposed to be that way, with the separation of church and state.
As you have likely seen—due to the ceaseless amount of news about the US everywhere—that is a fucking joke now. Our country is overridden by the devils evangelical spawn.
I guess, but it feels like your state aknowledges religions with speciak tax regimes and stuff like that. The whole religious freedom thing is kinda cringe to me
The idea was that they stay out of politics, the government stays out of religion, because that’s mutually beneficial.
Now they’re on the cusp of reaping what they’ve sowed with the unholy evangelical alliance. People aren’t interested in churches anymore and young people especially. Republicans are one election away from nonviability for president (knock on wood, and please let it be the election in 2024). Young people fucking loathe Republicans and evangelicals.
Are there young people still casting their lot with them? Absolutely. But the proportional difference is disastrous in politics. Even a 45-55 split is massive, and millennials and Zoomers are certainly more than that on Republicans.
So what is the solution for religious families then? Are they forced to private institutions/homeschool?
The solution is to not mix up faith and school
I’m interested to know if there’s any kind of religious education in the French school system?
In the UK I was in a CofE school (Christian) but our Religious Education classes taught about all religions pretty equally.
My middle school did too but I was in a private school, I don’t know if it is part of public school. Most of it was me arguing with my religious teacher tho
So violate their faith for school? That’s not an ideal solution
It’s been part of France’s political culture that religious signification has no place in public institutions. Given that Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Britain offer ways to religious groups to punish others through the legal system for not accepting their criteria regarding what constitutes legitimate criticism [*], but France doesn’t, I’d argue that France is doing something right.
In 2018, a youth in Spain was condemned to pay 480€ for publishing an edited photograph of a Christ image with his own face.
This event emboldened fanatic religious organizations, which sought charges against an actor for saying “I shit on God and Virgin Mary!” in a restaurant. Fortunately he wasn’t declared guilty, but he suffered a judicial process of 2 years. This doesn’t mean they didn’t achieve their goal: they sent everyone the message that you should think twice the next time you consider you have freedom of expression.
If you let religious people think their beliefs must be protected from any criticism, many of them will start to see their privilege as the norm, and eventually encroach the freedoms of everyone else.
Yeah honestly. As much as we’ve struggled with developing and even enforcing it today, I think America has a good balance between freedom to practice and freedom from state sponsored religion
Probably not the best moment in that country’s history to make that claim
https://web.archive.org/web/20230719103441/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/08/opinion/supreme-court-religion.html
I honestly don’t understand the contradicting argument of “there should be no religious symbol in a state school, if you want that go to a religious school” and “no religious symbols allowed will set them free”.
Surely if you are funneling all of these kids into religious schools and away from the state system, you’re going to entrench them in that religion further, not “set them free”. It just serves to divide kids even more than if you allowed them all the freedom to mingle in the same school with all their religious garb.
Religion has no place in the modern world.
The people here do not represent what the world outside looks like and anonymity emboldens extreme views.
In a way I get it, your way of life is being discriminated against. But with thousands of years of history and present day to go off of, I still feel it’s a good thing.
I kinda compare it to smoking cigarettes. There are a ton of people who do it, but it’s so obviously unhealthy. I won’t go on with the analogy, but you can get pretty grim with it.
You can have a fulfilling and culture filled life without blind hope for a greater power and possibly being negatively influenced by that belief; either through authority figures in your church or you’re own interpretations of religious teachings.
So while it might suck for you, your grandchildren will be better off because they’re not losing anything.