Schoolgirls who refused to change out of the loose-fitting robes have been sent home with a letter to parents on secularism.
French public schools have sent dozens of girls home for refusing to remove their abayas – long, loose-fitting robes worn by some Muslim women and girls – on the first day of the school year, according to Education Minister Gabriel Attal.
Defying a ban on the garment seen as a religious symbol, nearly 300 girls showed up on Monday morning wearing abayas, Attal told the BFM broadcaster on Tuesday.
Most agreed to change out of the robe, 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 headscarves forbidden 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.
The 34-year-old minister said the girls refused entry on Monday 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 gown there would be a “new dialogue”.
He added that he was in favour of trialling school uniforms or a dress code amid the debate over the ban.
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 said he would provide a timetable later this year 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.
But he added: “We must go through experiments, try things out” in order to promote debate, he said.
‘Worst consequences’
Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler, reporting from Paris before the ban came into force said Attal deemed the abaya a religious symbol which violates French secularism.
“Since 2004, in France, religious signs and symbols have been banned in schools, including headscarves, kippas and crosses,” she said.
“Gabriel Attal, the education minister, says that no one should walk into a classroom wearing something which could suggest what their religion is.”
On 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”.
He said it leads to the “worst consequences” such as the murder three years ago of teacher Samuel Paty for showing Prophet Muhammad 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 the YouTube 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 on Tuesday.
People should be allowed to wear what they want. That said, nobody should voluntarily wear these terrible symbols of sexism and oppression. The literal religious purpose of the abaya and even the hijab is to promote modesty, with the rationale that men can’t control themselves and it’s women’s responsibility to do that for them. Fuck that message and fuck the ideology that it perpetuates.
This is exactly the problem. If men had to cover their bodies, I wouldnt mind it, but because only women have to cover their bodies, it is sexist.
men have to cover their bodies as well, just not as much as women. I think it’s unfair to assume gender equality will ever be real because of the amount of difference they both have.
What differences have men and women that make women have to cover all but their face/eyes and men dont?
Women and men ARE equal, what are you talking about? What’s unfair is not allowing women to express themselves freely because you can’t control yourself
Exactly, I can’t for the life of me understand why so many fake leftists today would even defend this oppressive garbage, it makes no sense
Yeah, I’m a leftist and I find Islam as abhorrent as Christianity. I get that Muslims are a minority in the west, and so they’re often unjustly persecuted. But that doesn’t mean we should accept conservative nonsense just cause it comes from a minority religious group.
Im glad I read this. I support any minority and any freedom of religion, but not in a thousand years will I support conservative, ancient ideals.
Modesty is not a religious value. Many philosophies promote it.
Secularism doesn’t, and that is what France is.