The French government will ban female students from wearing Islamic garb in state schools, according to the nation’s education minister.
The clothing in question, the abaya, is a traditional garment worn by Muslim women that can cover them from head to toe.
His decision marks the latest step by the French government to curtail Islamic dress in public.
France Cracks Down
The move by the education ministry comes after months of debate over the wearing of the robes in French schools, where students have been banned from wearing Muslim headscarves for almost two decades.
Mr. Attal’s predecessor, Pap Ndiaye, had hesitated against cracking down on the garments, telling the Senate that “the abaya is not easy to define, legally ... it would take us to the administrative tribunal, where we would lose.”
The new education minister said that “schools of the Republic are built on very strong values and principles, especially laïcité,” a term that refers to the strict separation of state and religion.
“I have decided that the abaya could no longer be worn in schools,” said Mr. Attal in the TF1 interview.
“When you walk into a classroom, you shouldn’t be able to identify the pupils’ religion just by looking at them,” he said.
“Secularism means the freedom to emancipate oneself through school,” he continued, describing the abaya as “a religious gesture, aimed at testing the resistance of the republic toward the secular sanctuary that school must constitute.”
The French newspaper Le Monde reported that Mr. Attal will give “clear rules at the national level” to school administrators just as students return to classes nationwide in France on Sept. 4.
In 2004, France prohibited students from wearing headscarves in its schools, as well as other religious symbols, including large crosses and Jewish kippahs.
Paris later banned people from wearing face veils in public in 2010 and fined those using them with a $172 penalty.
Battle Over Robes and Headscarves
France has maintained a strict public secularism policy regarding religion in state schools for over a century, after the Third French Republic removed Catholic influence from public education.Since the second half of the 20th century, the government has attempted to update guidelines to deal with an increasingly emboldened Muslim minority, which currently is millions strong and growing.
The battle over secularism in schools has since intensified after history teacher Samuel Paty was beheaded by an Islamist Chechen migrant near his school in a Paris suburb in 2020.
During France’s last presidential election season in 2022, the question over Muslim religious dress became an issue of debate.
Mr. Macron’s rivals on the right, like Marine Le Pen of National Rally, campaigned on banning headscarves from the country.
Last year, French legislators backed a ban on wearing the hijab and other “conspicuous religious symbols” in sports competitions.
The bill, which was was proposed by the conservative Gaullist opposition party, Les Républicains, argued that hijabs could risk the safety of athletes who wore it while playing sports.
A previous ban on the niqab—full-face veils worn by some Muslim women—was criticized by the United Nations Human Rights Committee in 2018 as a violation of human rights.
Left and Right Divided Over Decision
The school abaya ban has widespread defenders on the right, who are concerned about growing Islamism in France, and on the left, who see themselves as defending the republican values of the separation between church and state.Still, many on the left argued that the ban was an encroachment on civil liberties.
Clementine Autain of the left-wing opposition France Unbowed party criticized what she called the “policing of clothing,” labeling the move “unconstitutional,” and actually an attack on the nation’s secular values.
The French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), a national body encompassing several Muslim associations in France, condemned the new rule.
“The abaya is not religious attire, it’s a type of fashion,” Abdallah Zekri, vice-chair of CFCM, told BFM TV.
The education minister was asked during his interview whether the guidelines regarding hijabs would be enforced in schools, but he refrained from comment on that subject and focused on abayas.
“During my meetings with (the school heads) this summer, I sensed their need for a clear rule on the national level on the issue of abayas, so the rule is now here,” Mr. Attal said, according to CNN.
Bruno Bobkiewicz, general secretary of a French teachers union, welcomed the announcement, France 24 reported.
“The instructions were not clear, now they are and we welcome it,” he said.
Mr. Attal, along with Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, are seen as rising stars who could potentially succeed Mr. Macron in 2027, according to France 24.
