Students will no longer be allowed to wear abayas, a loose-fitting full-length robe worn by some Muslim women, in France’s state-run schools, according to Education Minister Gabriel Attal.
According to Mr Attal, the new rule will come into effect with the start of the upcoming school year on September 4.
He maintained that France’s policy strictly prohibits the display of religious symbols in government buildings and state schools, arguing that such displays go against the principles of secularism.
GOOD EVENING NIGERIA reports that the France had also banned use of headscarves in state-run schools since 2004.
“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.”
The decision follows months of debate regarding the presence of abayas in French schools.
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While some political parties on the right advocated for a ban on abayas, those on the left expressed concerns for the rights of Muslim women and girls.
“Secularism means the freedom to emancipate oneself through school,” Mr 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.”
He said that he would give clear rules at the national level before schools open after the summer break.
France’s history of restricting religious signs in schools dates back to the 19th Century, intended to minimize religious influence on public education.
Over the years, this policy evolved to include symbols like the Muslim headscarf and Jewish kippa. However, abayas had not previously been explicitly banned.
In 2010, France banned the wearing of full face veils in public which led to anger in France’s five million-strong Muslim community.
France 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.
It has been updating the law over the years to reflect its changing population, which now includes the Muslim headscarf and Jewish kippa, but abayas have not been banned outright.
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The debate on Islamic symbols has intensified since a Chechen refugee beheaded teacher Samuel Paty, who had shown students caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, near his school in a Paris suburb in 2020.
The announcement is the first major policy decision by Mr Attal, who was appointed France’s education minister by President Emmanuel Macron this summer at the age of 34.
The CFCM, a national body representing many Muslim associations, has said items of clothing alone were not “a religious sign”.