Schoolgirls who refused to change out of the robes have been sent home with a letter to parents on secularism.
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.
For those who don't get this, 'Laïcité' is what the French call the secularism which is part of their constitution.
Plenty are as serious about it, as many in the US are about free speech or the right to own a gun.
Obviously this is also in part a more recent phenomenon. France has a large Muslim population and laïcité is arguably interpreted more strictly by those who wish to combat the influence of Islam on French mainstream culture.
In Quebec we usually have to explain the difference between secularism and laïcité by mentioning that secularism is the separation of church and State by accommodating all religions equally while laïcité is the separation of church and State by excluding religion from the public domain. Quebec's take on laïcité is more relaxed than France's.
I think what’s so annoying about these laws is that they go à contresens, by strengthening religion in civic life. These girls are now forced to go to religious schools if they want to continue wearing their harmless cultural dress. In fact, religious schools have exploded in population since the laws on laïcité have passed in France. Many of those girls would have otherwise integrated into French society and become bored of religion, just like Catholic children do, if they went to a normal school. I remember listening to a French philosopher on a debate program say “Seuls les pays qui ont interdit le port du voile ont fini par l'imposer”. I don’t know if that’s literally true, but I think banning makes many muslims feel defiant and more passionate about their religious identity.
It’s especially galling in Canada, which has one of the most well-integrated and moderate Muslim minority populations in the world. A law like this is actively harmful to the goal of lessening “la pertinence de la religion dans la vie civile”. It goes against its own goals, to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
All other religious symbols are also banned (in schools), so this argument seems pretty weak. One can agree or disagree, but considering religion a private matter that should stay out of the public buildings is a perfectly legitimate stance, in my opinion.
Its funny that Islamists use the term "Islamophobia" considering they teach an homophobic culture themselves. Dont ask for tolerance if you are not willing to be tolerant yourself.
“Since 2004, in France, religious signs and symbols have been banned in schools, including headscarves, kippas and crosses,”
I agree with it, not in the "hah, we are dunking on minorities" way, but just because I'm personally so sick of religion being a part of every waking moment of life and being used as a cudgel to influence public policy, media, and what choices people can make when it comes to important personal choices, such as healthcare. Of course, this is being viewed through my American lens, but we've seen similar erosions in public institutions due to so-called "religious rights" despite being a secular country. While France's version is fairly blunt, it seeks to normalize and equalize everyone, which I think is a decent goal.
If it wasn't religion, I'm positive it would be something else. But I think it's very healthy to maintain separation of religion while at public institutions, particularly in a world where religious extremism is on the rise.
lol no. Youre french when they can put you on a pedestal for how becoming french has helped you achieve something. But god forbid you do something that is not considered favorable by the french. Then you are an immigrant and you being an immigrant is the cause of all
The people this affects the most aren't the people using religion as a cudgel.
Which isn't to say that e.g. orthodox Jews and Muslims don't wield religion as a cudgel when they have the opportunity - just look at East Ramapo NY or Israel. But they don't have any kind of broad institutional power in the US or France.
In the US, the big problem is dominionist Christianity, and there's no religious requirement for them to wear something in particular.
Laicity is tolerance. What's happening currently is the opposite of tolerance. It's extremism the same as the most zealous fanatics, it's merely fascist zeal instead of religious zeal.
“Gabriel Attal, the education minister, says that no one should walk into a classroom wearing something which could suggest what their religion is.”
I was initially torn on this, but as long as it's for all religions, I support it. I firmly believe that I shouldn't know your religion unless I ask. Religion is toxic.
I do think you should have the freedom to wear religious signifiers as an adult. I just don't approve. But I don't want to stop you. Children in school? This is the same (to me) as requiring them to leave their phones at home.
This ban is like an American school saying you're allowed to wear cowboy hats but not sombreros because sombreros are associated with catholicism, in that they are mostly associated with the culture of a predominately catholic country.
This is like banning kids from wearing rainbows because it signifies their values.
In the Americas there were schools for native American children where they forced them to dress, eat, speak, and behave "properly" and not practice their religion. The goal was to eliminate their culture and make them homogeneously American or Canadian. (They also killed a fucking ton) This sort of nationalism has generally been looked back on as a mistake and a horrible atrocity. Why should it be acceptable towards other religious groups?
These kids aren't being taken from their families. They aren't being forced to give up their religion in their homes. These are not the same. This isn't about "other religious groups." It's all religions while at school, and I'm fine with that.
People are down voting you but your sentiment is right. By excluding these girls from school you only punish the girls involved and deny them and the schools a chance to make things work.
People should be allowed to wear what they want. That said, nobody should voluntarily wear these terrible symbols of sexism and oppression. The literal religious purpose of the abaya and even the hijab is to promote modesty, with the rationale that men can't control themselves and it's women's responsibility to do that for them. Fuck that message and fuck the ideology that it perpetuates.
men have to cover their bodies as well, just not as much as women. I think it's unfair to assume gender equality will ever be real because of the amount of difference they both have.
Yeah, I'm a leftist and I find Islam as abhorrent as Christianity. I get that Muslims are a minority in the west, and so they're often unjustly persecuted. But that doesn't mean we should accept conservative nonsense just cause it comes from a minority religious group.
It's not about defending THIS religion. It's about religion in general. In our western countries it's normal that this religion is the odd one out. While I do not agree with what everyone has to say, I still want to keep supporting freedom of religion. You get my point?
Look I don't agree with what you have to say but isn't it nice that you can still express yourself here and have this conversation?
I don't want religion in schools, outside that, you're still free to practice what you want, but keep religion out of education. France got this one right
I'm not saying France isn't racist because they absolutely are but this doesn't seem like that this seems like applying the same rules to everyone equally.
That's rich coming from you, assuming you're Australian :) How are we mistreating them exactly? I live in Nantes, Breton culture is everywhere, street signs are translated in Breton, there are bilingual schools... They don't seem very oppressed to me.
In Spain the medium of instruction can be and is set by the regional government. Catalan, Basque, Occitian and Galician is used extensively as a medium of instruction in public schools (fully funded by the government)
There's extensive media which includes government owned media in those languages. And for government services you can ask for someone to speak to you in those languages.
The languages are promoted and are co-official. I have friends from Galicia and have been there.
After looking at what an abaya is and understanding some of the overt and covert reasons for doing this and the reaction, the cool solution would be if abayas (they're really just a loose dress) started to be marketed at everyone, so that anyone could wear them and end this stupid debacle. What do people wear in the west if they don't want people to look at their "curves" anyway? Huge market gap, right there. Or maybe instead of abayas they'll start wearing long trench coats to school, lol.
"Women in Saudi Arabia have for decades been required to wear the abaya - a loose, all-covering robe - in public, a dress code strictly enforced by police."
And there are still people in here defending this lol
More accurately, this is french secularism, not a ban on religions, just good old state/church separation applied to public institutions where religious symbols are not welcome.
It's conveniently targeting one group and their religious expression. It's different when they do it to themselves, like in Turkey before the AKP took power and started weakening secularism there.
Crucifixes and other outter religious symbols are facing the same restriction.
For what reason a particular creed holds such tight restrictions on what garments are considered adequate over others evades.
This is a quite harsh way to impose a rule but it is a fair one. No one is being denied education. This is "keep your beliefs to yourself and do not impose it onto others".
"Ackshually, technically, totally fair." This clearly only affects this one group of people in practice. The law was obviously made to garner the bigot vote and distract from the incredibly unpopular shit this government is pulling. This "technically" shit is only deflection. I mean it works great on people who are Islamophobic but don't actually want to admit that to themselves. Plausible deniability.
impose it onto others
How are these children "imposing" anything onto others? You see one abaya, and now you're forced to accept Mohammed as your prophet? Do you know what "impose" means? You used it correctly just two sentences before that.
the Abaya is just a long wide cut dress. They are banning girls from wearing long dresses, because these are popular with muslims. If the girls decide to wear hoodies now to be conservative about what they show of their body it would need to be banned by that logic too. Basically anything that is not skin tight hot pants and crop tops should be banned because it might be worn by muslim girls to adhere to their religious values.
This ruling has nothing to do with actual secular values. It is just to discriminate against muslim children.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?