France To Ban Female Students From Wearing Muslim Abaya Dress In State Schools

The French government has decided to ban female students from wearing Islamic abayas in state-run schools, arguing that they violate secular laws.

France has decided to ban female students from wearing abaya, a loose-fitting full-length robe worn by some Muslim women, in stat-run schools, reported BBC citing the education minister Gabriel Attal. The minister said the rule will come into effect when schools reopen after summer break on September 4. Notably, France has a strict ban on religious signs and symbols in state schools and government buildings, BBC stated. This is because, as France argues, these signs violate the secular laws, the report added. 

Wearing a headscarf was already banned in 2004 in state-run schools. Now, Education Minister Gabriel Attal told France's TF1 TV that one should not be able to identify students’ religion just by looking at them. 

"When you walk into a classroom, you shouldn't be able to identify the pupils' religion just by looking at them," Attal told France's TF1 TV, as quoted by BBC. He added: "I have decided that the abaya could no longer be worn in schools." 

Abaya is increasingly worn in schools which has led to a political divide over their use in France. While right-wing parties are pushing for a ban, the left has voiced concerns for the rights of Muslim women and girls, as per BBC. 

"Secularism means the freedom to emancipate oneself through school," BBC quoted Attal as saying to a TV channel. The minister further argued that the abaya is "a religious gesture, aimed at testing the resistance of the republic toward the secular sanctuary that school must constitute." 

He said that he would give clear orders at the national level before schools open after the summer break. 

In the year 2010, France banned the full-face veils which led to anger in France's five million-strong Muslim community. Notably, the country has enforced a strict ban on religious signs at schools since the 19th Century. This prohibition includes Christian symbols such as large crosses, in an attempt to curb any Catholic influence from public education. 

The country has been, since then, updating the law over the years to reflect its changing population, which now includes the Muslim headscarf and Jewish kippa, but abayas have not been banned outright. 

The concern over Islamic symbols deepened after a Chechen refugee beheaded teacher Samuel Paty, who had shown students caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, near his school in a Paris suburb in 2020. 

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