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.
Some people want to dress modestly. Would you feel uncomfrtable if they told you to strip at school?
That seems like a very disingenuous framing. Khaki pants are no more or less modest than jeans. A rule saying "don't wear this specific article of clothing" is not a rule against dressing modestly, and I'm certain that there are plenty of modestly dressed children of all sorts of cultures at all these schools.
Modesty is a cultural framework. If our current society had evolved fron the cultural norms of the yanommame what we consider an aceptable amount of clothes to wear would be much less. In the culture of cartoon bears it is very unusual to wear pants. In the culture of these girls wearing an abaya or similar clothing is the aceptable standard.
Imagine you get transported to an alterative reality were the french goverment banned pants as to make you conform to cartoon bear culture. You would likley be uncomfrtable.
Are you telling me that they have one garment considered modest and all other clothes on earth are immodest?
Edit: also I understand your point but personally I'd fit in just fine in cartoon bear culture, I don't need pants
I think you just missed their point, which was about the original clothing being connected to modesty culturally.
I just don't know if I believe that their culture has exactly one garment considered modest.
Do you think France would be cool with them wearing other garments considered modest by their culture?
I haven't yet seen evidence they wouldn't.
What does modestly mean to you?
It means not showing skin or curves
That's just a modern abusive interpretation of the Koran in some societies anyway. E.g. https://www.abdullahyahya.com/2019/09/proof-muslim-women-dont-have-to-cover-their-hair/
Of course once your family has inculcated in you that body privacy is a duty, you may begin to see it as your right in France where institutions are secular, which creates these integration problems.
If there is a pair of kids in a school who doesn't want to wear what their parents force on them, to me that is still worth protecting at the expense of Muslim conservative students' right to wear a traditional dress.
Please, if you want to read on religious matters read from accredited scholars who know what they are doing. This is ridiculous to link a blog post from a web developer... The guy even is a Hadith (transmitted sayings and actions of the prophet, peace be upon him) rejector, making him a non-muslim.
Qur'anists - people who only consider Qur'an as the only source of religious law- are not considered Sunni (people following the Sunna, the teachings of the prophet transcribed in Hadith) who are the majority Muslims. Qur'anists are not taken seriously because they contradict their principle by not following the verses in the Qur'an ordering them to obey the Prophet because whatever he tells or does is part of divine revelation.
If you have a question pertaining to a health issue, you go to the doctor, not the baker.
The conclusions he draws are ludicrous too. The state not mandating it in a period of time has absolutely nothing to do with what the religion mandates. States and laws change, religion does not (except through prophets of God).
To use his last analogy: one needs to be qualified to write about a matter; him writing a blog post about it does not literally require that he is qualified.
Edit: I mean no disrespect to you, sorry if I came as rude. I just wanted to stress that there are many things you can find on the internet and one needs to get his information from reputable sources especially regarding such sensitive matters.
Is an Abaya the only way to accomplish this?
No it is not.
But this law is now being misused to harass kids who are known to be Muslim although they comply with it by wearing something else.
For the non-frog eaters, the linked video is from a right-wing French TV station where they are asking a girl (left) who was denied entrance to her school because of her clothes. This is not a abaya she is wearing and she says other muslim and non-muslim girls wearing the same outfit got no problem going in that same morning. She is known to wear a hijab (which she removes upon being to school as required by the other law).
I will not comment on the interviewers trying to find fault in her or their ignorance.