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.
As someone who comes from Muslim upbringing, I am 100% against face veils and abayas. But this is very clearly racist. Those girls are the victims, so why punish them even further? France is such a fascist place.
Clearly not racist. Same rules for everyone.
Weird how in practice this seems to only affect one group of people. Weird how all the bigots seem love this. But this couldn’t be the reason for this, could it? Who would ever try to exploit the widespread Islamophobia in France to gain popularity and distract from real problems?
From what I understand, this affects everyone. All religious symbols are banned from school. I do not know what the rest of your murmuring has to do with the specific topic.
because the Abaya is not a religious symbol. It is a long dress that is worn for religious reasons, in this case to not reveal too much of the body. So if they want to ban this religious “symbol” then they need to ban all clothes that arent very revealing.
Yes of course, it is just a piece of clothing. A piece of clothing that women are forced to wear in public in the women’s rights loving state of saudi arabia. It is not about very revealing clothing, you are intentionally missing the point here. It is specifically about this piece of religious clothing.
You are wrong. There is no forcing of women to wear an abaya in saudi arabia. they are forced to wear clothes that arent revealing, but it is not specific to this kind of clothing.
Also it is a weird flex to say that it is good to force women to wear certain clothing because saudi arabia forces them to wear different clothing. You still end up forcing women to wear or not to wear certain things, taking away their liberty.
Again it is not a religious symbol because it is not defined by the religion, unlike the robe of a priest, the cross or the head scarf.
If you want to ban the underlying “symbol” of not wearing revealing clothing, youd need to ban all clothing that does that and not just the abaya. But they wont do that because they are bigoted hypocrites.
Are urinals sexist?
Is the intention of urinals to bully women?
Uniform rules don’t always affect everyone uniformly. It’s really not hard to create uniform laws that disproportionately target a particular group.
For example, North Dakota passed a law that required Voter ID with a residential street address on it. However, many Native Americans living on tribal land in the state didn’t have a residential street address.. Most people in the state who lived in a house that didn’t have an address lived on a reservation. The law was clearly racist and specifically designed to depress the Native American vote for partisan gain, yet used the same rules for everyone to do so.
can you be racist if it’s targeting a religion? honest question. I mean you can be any race and musilm. is it religious discrimination? maybe, but they ban religious garbs for all other religions too, ironically from my understanding, the whole point of it is to level the education playing field so religion isn’t discriminated against during the Education process.
I guess you could argue some religious garb is heavily tied to cultural identity and that’s probably a fair argument that it disproportionately affects some more than others. Poples right to express their culture shouldn’t be infringed upon by the state, the policy is definitely messy, but i don’t think it’s racist.
I guess you have to check what % of native French are Muslim vs what % of immigrants from middle east are. If by targeting Islam you’re pretty much exclusively targeting immigrants I would say it’s kind of racist.
More importantly, some is tied to religious identity.
For example, regardless of your culture, if you converted to orthodox Judaism you’d be obligated to wear a kippah if you’re male.
As opposed to muslims?
The middle east was a haven for philosophy and science, two thousand years ago. A shame so much of it fell apart due to religious extremism
It fell apart after colonialism, and then Western powers proceeded to fund extremist political groups like the brotherhood, Wahhabists, Al-Qaeda, etc. to combat the leftists.
Yes. “Muslims” aren’t (isn’t?) a fascist place
Only a fascist religion, got ya.
Not that either. Have a read here, maybe you’ll stop embarrassing yourself: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
Have a read here, maybe you’ll stop embarrassing yourself:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamofascism
You think a religion can’t be fascist? Lmao.
Alright let’s take a read. Let’s start at the very beginning of the “scholarly analysis” section.
Ahh, I didn’t expect that you’d link me an article that says your argument is full of shit.
Ok ok let’s look at the few scholars who had a position of agreement
Ahh, nice! Americans and Europeans, the inventors of fascism, think that Muslims are actually fascist. The same ones that support mass murder machines and wars around the world? I sure would trust those people… If I was the dumbest man on earth. Thankfully I’m far from that, but we know who is 👀.
I highly urge you to block my account so that you’re less likely to embarrass yourself in the future.
But we are discussing this in a post about muslims in Europe, huh? So you wouldnt trust Americans and Europeans, but you are urging to come live here? Why dont go to muslim countries, if they are so perfect?
Not at all bro, lets keep dicussing in a good manner. Waiting here for you answer to the above comment.
Where do you see me urging anyone to go anywhere? Where do you see me calling “Muslim countries” perfect? The middle east and north Africa has been ravaged by European colonialism, and it continues to be ravaged by wars sponsored by them. It is very much the opposite of perfect.
As you can read in the article, most simply agreed to wear something else. For those who refused, some talks with families will follow. To me it seems a fairly rational way to enforce the rule.
Please learn what fascism means.
And racism while you are at it.
Thanks for the recommendation, but I already know.