France to ban children from wearing Abaya dress in state-run schools

France will ban children from wearing the Abaya - the loose-fitting, full-length robe worn by some of the Muslim women - in state-run schools. The move comes after months of debate over the wearing of abayas in French schools. 

Talking to the media, the country’s Education Minister Gabriel Attal said, the rule will be applied as soon as the new school year starts on the 4th of September. Mr Attal said, that when a child walks into a classroom, one should not be able to identify the pupils' religion just by looking at them.

He said, secularism means the freedom to emancipate oneself through school. He argued, the Abaya is a religious gesture, aimed at testing the



resistance of the republic toward the secular sanctuary that school must constitute.

 

France has a strict ban on religious signs in state schools and government buildings, arguing that they violate secular laws. Wearing a headscarf has been banned since 2004 in state-run schools. In 2010, France banned the wearing of full-face veils in public which provoked anger in France's five million-strong Muslim community.

 

France has enforced a strict ban on religious signs at schools since the 19th Century, including Christian symbols such as large crosses, in an effort to curb any Catholic influence from public education.