French schools send scores of Muslim girls home for wearing abayas
1 min read
Education Minister Gabriel Attal said scores of French public school girls were sent home for refusing to remove their abayas on the first day of school.
Attal told BFM on Tuesday that approximately 300 girls wore abayas on Monday morning, defying a rule.
Most agreed to remove the robe, but 67 refused and were sent home, he added.
The government banned the abaya in schools this month, citing secularism guidelines that already banned headscarves as religious symbols.
France is to ban pupils in state-run schools from wearing the abaya – a loose-fitting robe worn by many Muslim women and girls.
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) August 29, 2023
Al Jazeera's @natachabut says the country’s education minister deems the garment a religious symbol which violates French secularism ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/3CKu2h3ShK
The political right cheered, but the radical left said it violated civil liberties.
The 34-year-old minister said the girls denied entry on Monday received a letter to their families saying “secularism is not a constraint, it is a liberty”.
A “new dialogue” would occur if they returned to school wearing the gown.
He supported testing school uniforms or a dress code during the ban discussion.
French school uniforms have not been required since 1968, but conservative and far-right politicians have frequently lobbied for them.
Attal said he will schedule a uniform trial run with participating schools later this year.
“I don’t think the school uniform is a miracle solution that solves all harassment, social inequalities, or secularism problems,” he said.
But he added: “We must go through experiments, try things out” to foster debate.
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