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.
It’s France they’re very xenophobic. Just look at how they treat the Corsicans, Brentons, Basques and Catalans.
Night and day to even a few hundred metres across the road in Spain or Andorra.
I’m not saying France isn’t racist because they absolutely are but this doesn’t seem like that this seems like applying the same rules to everyone equally.
Just going by the article.
Though it can seem fair, applying the same rules to everyone equally can be very racist.
A law that requires everyone to eat bacon would apply to everyone equally, but it’s still antisemitic and islamophobic.
However I would note… France has rule about no crosses or cross wearing in schools. So it isn’t like Islam is being singled out. Well this specific rule is about them, but France has very wide rule of “no religious clothing, items or symbols” in school and they don’t much pick sides. Jewish kids… No kippas, Protestants and Catholics, no crosses, Muslims, no head scrafs, no face veils, no religious robes. Sikhs, no turbans.
So it isn’t xenophobic, since the local majority religion is also under rules of “no religious symbols wearing”.
What one can say is, that it is highly anti-religious. However that isn’t same thing as xenophobic or say specifically antisemitic or islamophobic. Islamophobic would be “Muslim girls aren’t allowed to wear scarfs, but it’s okay for catholic girls to wear crosses”.
French government “doesn’t like” the local traditional majority religion either.
One absolutely can argue about “is it too much restriction of religious liberty in general”, however one can’t argue “well but this is about jews or muslims”. It isn’t. This specific rule about abayas is mostly a technocratic decision based on wider political decision of “we have principle of no religious displays in school”. It was decided “oh yeah, we missed this one religious clothing wearing/display. Add it to the long list of specified banned religious displays of all kinds”.
I’m sure, if member of the church of the flying spaghetti monster tried to walk to French school with colander on their head, the courts would rule "no colander hats either, that is religious display also. You can go join the Jewish and Sikhs on the club house of “France banned our religious hat” club.
However, does the local majority religion mandate wearing a religious symbol?
Wearing a cross doesn’t seem akin in significance to wearing a turban or a kippah. From what I understand, it’s more of just a Christian fashion statement than a deep part of the religion.
So yes, this seems quite xenophobic to do something that’s a mild annoyance at worst for the dominant religion and a major issue for minority religions.
I suppose the French government would argue that really isn’t their problem. And it isn’t.
They have a rule that has been standing for a long time and is simply been enforced, it’s the individual religions who dictate how severely they see this.
How does that in any way address the question of if the law is xenophobic or not?
What about a law that requires only women to cover their bodies and not men? What would that be?
Absolutely sexist. I’m honestly kind of dumbfounded by the number of people opposing this. France has done some stupid shit recently, but they are absolutely in the right here.
That’s rich coming from you, assuming you’re Australian :) How are we mistreating them exactly? I live in Nantes, Breton culture is everywhere, street signs are translated in Breton, there are bilingual schools… They don’t seem very oppressed to me.
Well let’s start.
In Spain the medium of instruction can be and is set by the regional government. Catalan, Basque, Occitian and Galician is used extensively as a medium of instruction in public schools (fully funded by the government)
There’s extensive media which includes government owned media in those languages. And for government services you can ask for someone to speak to you in those languages.
The languages are promoted and are co-official. I have friends from Galicia and have been there.
OK, good for them I guess? But the regional language and culture thing is a much different and bigger issue in Spain.
Anyway, speakers of regional languages are not repressed in France. There are bilingual schools, newspapers and cultural associations which are partially funded by the state. Things might not be perfect, but I’ve never heard of anyone having to hide their regional origin for fear of repercussions, or discriminated against because of it. Those are things I personally experienced in Australia BTW.
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Basque here. Yes.
We have our own parliament and laws (like all the autonomous communities) and police. Basque, Catalan and Galician are official languages, and they now can be used in the Spanish Congress too.
Obc not everything is perfect, but that can be said of everything. You can’t compare that with a centralist country as france.
Whether they do or not isn’t really the question. Can more be done? Yes of course. But Catalan, Occitian, Basque and Galician is co-official which affords them use as a medium of instruction, media usage, can ask for services from the government in those languages etc. How’s France doing for those points?
And more importantly Spain has changed in the past 50 years. Keep in mind even half a century ago Spain was the same as France in terms of repressing cultures. France well, it’s still the same.