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.
Typical reply from an islamist that never left the muslim country where he lives. Where were you crying when Turkey had the same law?
Abayas and qamis are religious garments. However only women were the abayas. Why don't the men wear the qamis? What a strange thing: In a mysogynist religion the woman are so religious that wear religious garments! Lol.
Yes it's better to not do anything. Because it might hurt the feelings of muslims...
Even if 1 person benefits with the law then the law is worth it. Or do you think that the law needs to benefit everybody? The law needs to protect the most vunerable. In this case the muslim women.
I'm an American atheist and you're a chauvinist troglodyte
If all it did was marginally help people, that would be good. But it doesn't just do that, it also hurts people, and that's the only reason people here are arguing against it (we don't have "Haram Police" here decrying infidels). It is punishing children for adhering to a clearly mostly benign cultural practice. Yeah, we can criticize it, but that's different from indiscriminately outlawing it or framing every single girl wearing a baggy dress as a victim of child abuse, and this all fits within a larger framework of plainly anti-Muslim policy forcing people to either assimilate or have no place in public life.
ahahahaha.
You definitely don't know what's an abaya, and it's purpose. But it's ok, you are an american. I don't expect much. They can dress baggy dresses. They can dress baggy pants and sweat-shirts. Do you know what they can't wear? religious attire.
Nice choice of words. using "Adhering" to white wash that they are forced to use it, Otherwise how do you explain that that only women wears abayas and the boys don't wear qamis? Do you think that women are more religious than men?
The law is the same for everybody. Jewish people, can't wear kippah, shtreimel and tallits. Go cry a river. And btw, they should assimilate. Not assimilating means living in ghettos, something that you as american should know about it (since there are a lot of them in US).