‘Abaya has no place in schools’: France bans ‘new phenomenon’ to ‘protect’ secularism

In their latest clamp down on Islamic clothing, over a decade after banning full-face veils or Hijab in public areas, France education minister Gabriel Attal on Monday announced that students cannot wear Abaya or long robes in schools, citing a threat to secularism in the educational institutions. 

France had become the first European country in 2011 when it imposed a ban on full-face veils. Further in 2004, France had banned the wearing of hijabs and other religious symbols in state schools. 

On Monday, the newly-appointed 34-year-old education minister of France said that wearing of long robes will be banned starting with the new school year, saying the garments worn mainly by Muslims are testing secularism in the nation's schools.

For Gabriel Attal, the garments are “an infringement on secularism,” a foundational principle for France, and, in some cases, a bid to destabilize schools.

The 34-year-old Attal, appointed in July, was potentially moving into a minefield with his ban on long robes to “protect” secularism, prompted by growing reports of the garments in some classrooms around the country.

Notably, previous statements and laws on secularism have seeded acrimonious debate.

“Our schools are continually tested. We know that,” Attal said at a news conference a week ahead of the start of the school year. He said that the wearing of abayas and khamis, a “new phenomenon,” has recently grown, and must be met with a firm response to tackle what sometimes amounts to “infringements, attempts at destabilization.”

“We must stand together. We will stand together. ... The abaya has no place in school, no more than religious symbols,” Attal said, referring to the 2004 law which banned Muslim headscarves, Jewish kippas, large crosses and other “ostentatious” religious accoutrements from classrooms.

French authorities have increasingly moved to defend secularism, a constitutional principle meant to guarantee religious neutrality, as society grows complex in a multicultural nation in which some French Muslims seek to show their religious identity.

Authorities fear that religious symbols are a gateway to Islamic radicalism, while some Muslims feel stigmatized by efforts to make them conform. Islam is the second religion in France.

Attal's predecessor as education minister, Pap Ndiaye, failed to crack down on long robes in the classroom, effectively leaving the choice to school principals as the phenomenon grew. 

To enforce the ban on abayas and khamis in classrooms, Attal said that 14,000 educational personnel in leadership positions would be trained by the end of this year to deal with the matter, and 300,000 personnel would be trained by 2025. Top administrators will visit schools seeking help as well as those “where we judge specific needs to manage the start of school with them.”

(With agency inputs)