“We will no longer be able to wear an abaya at school,” Education Minister Gabriel Attal announced on Sunday on TF1, saying he wanted to give “clear rules at the national level” to school heads. The Minister, questioned on this controversial subject for several months after incidents related to the wearing of these outfits, a long traditional dress covering the whole body, announced that he wanted to meet “as of next week” with school officials to help them enforce this ban.
Be “firm on this subject”
“Secularism is a freedom to emancipate oneself through school”, hammered the minister. As soon as he was appointed rue de Grenelle at the end of July, he judged that coming to school in an abaya was “a religious gesture, aimed at testing the resistance of the Republic to the secular sanctuary that the School must constitute”, promising to be “firm on this subject”. “You enter a classroom, you must not be able to identify the religion of the students by looking at them,” he further defended at TF1’s 8 p.m. newspaper.
The issue of wearing the abaya, which is not a Muslim religious sign according to the French Council for Muslim Worship (CFCM) has already been the subject of a circular from the National Education Department last November. In this text, the abayas are considered – like the bandanas and long skirts, also mentioned – as outfits that can be prohibited if they are “worn in such a way as to manifest ostensibly a religious affiliation”.
Attack on secularism
But the heads of establishments were waiting for clearer rules on this subject in the face of the resurgence of incidents. According to a note from state services, of which AFP obtained a copy, attacks on secularism, much more numerous since the assassination of Samuel Paty, increased by 120% between the 2022/2023 and 2021 school year. /2022. The wearing of signs and outfits, which represent the majority of attacks, has increased by more than 150% throughout the last school year.
Since the law of March 15, 2004 “in public schools, colleges and high schools, the wearing of signs or outfits by which students ostensibly show a religious affiliation is prohibited”.