French schools sent home dozens of girls for wearing abayas

French schools have sent home 67 girls who refused to change out of their abaya, a traditional Muslim dress, into other clothes. The ban on wearing them became known on August 28.

According to French Education Minister Gabrielle Attal, on the first school day of the new school year in the country, about 300 girls came to school wearing abayas. Most of them agreed to change clothes, 67 refused. Attal also added that the girls' families were sent a letter from the school, which said that "secularism is not a restriction, it is freedom." The minister said that if girls show up at school wearing abayas again, they will have a “different conversation.”

On August 28, when announcing the ban, Gabriel Attal said that wearing abayas in schools violates the principle of secularism . The French left criticized this initiative of the Ministry of Education. Clementine Autin, a member of parliament from former French presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon's La France Insoumise party, called the ban "characteristic of obsessions on the topic of Islam." Mélenchon himself said that the new school year “will be politically polarized by a new, absurd form of religious war.”

Context

• In recent decades, France has introduced many bans on the wearing of religiously important clothing.

• In 2010, the French Senate banned the wearing of clothing that covers the face on the street. The ban also affected Muslim women, since after it wearing a burqa and niqab is not allowed. In 2018, the UN said the law violated the religious freedom rights of at least two women.

• In France, it is also prohibited for children to wear any religious symbols in school - hijabs, crosses, kippahs and the like.