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.
Racism against children must be one of these "western values" I've been hearing so much about.
French people will claim that secularism is the most important value in all of France but them half of the national days off are Catholic holidays.
Also I'm willing to bet really good money that if a nun wore a habit to a beach, she wouldn't get fined. A muslim woman wearing a burkini would though.
There's such a thing as cultural heritage. Revolutionaries tried to do away with it but it didn't take. Most of them were pagan holidays which were co-opted by the church anyway.
Because we keep national days purely for religious reasons, right? How about we abolish Halloween too, all those hypocrite atheists all over the world pretending not to believe in religions.
You're mistaken on the definition of racism. This has nothing to do with race and everything to do with how France deals with secularism
Yeah, everything to do with secularism. That's why France has Christian public holidays. And Macron called for closer ties between the state and Catholic church, and said Europe has "Judeo Christian roots". Oh wait...
I'm French and actually he's bang on the money, it's entirely about racism under the bullshit cover of "secularity"
I'm also French and I don't know, maybe you're right and that's a way to hide the real racist motives. I'm probably biased because I dislike all religions equally though
I'm an antitheist and, speaking as one, let me request that you pull your head out of whatever it is stuck in. France is notoriously Islamophobic and these are girls who are just wearing loose-fitting clothes because of a religious practice based on modesty. Is either the religion or the practice itself above critique? Certainly not, but forcing people not to do something so harmless is ridiculous religious discrimination.
You know what? I'll think about it
Props honestly, I definitely have a hard time not digging my heels in
Dislike all religions equally... blah blah blah.. some religions more equally than others blah blah
Maybe think of the outcome of your country's rightism instead of being so preoccupied with sticking it to the religions
What's even the point of this line of argument? At best you prove that this technically isn't racism in the strictest definitional sense but it's still just as harmful to kids and Muslims as racism.
It's not racism, it's just a racism-adjacent form of bigotry. Feeling owned yet, tankie?
Actually, I shot everyone in that refugee camp regardless of religion so I didn't do genocide, just ordinary everyday mass murder
.
This was an actual argument that was run in one of the Yugoslav tribunals BTW.
I don't think you could define this as strictly not racist, since "race" constitutes arbitrary characteristics decided upon largely by white hegemony. It's how Africans became a singular black race despite being different cultures and language groups. It's why Jews are sometimes white, sometimes not.
It's absolutely why most Americans consider a native Spanish speaker a different race, no matter how white they are. We're in a moment where being Muslim is a racial marker excluding a person from whiteness.
Here's a trick I do. Go show an uniformed white American a picture of Bashar al-Assad. Every time I've done this, they'll say he's a white guy. Then tell them he's the president of Syria and a Muslim. They instantly flip.
If it's not from the racism region of France than it's just sparkling bigotry
"You can't be racist against Mexicans because it's a country not a race!"
"You can't be racist against Irish Catholics because it's a religion not a race"
Religion in France is racialized as it is in most parts of the world, pretending otherwise is just a denial of reality and history, the French state couldn't care less for secularism on its own merits, it only cares about religion in the context of the eternal "immigrant" communities who it refuses to actually integrate because of the continuous French colonial mindset and a 19th century conception of frenchness which is centered around white pan-europeanism
If secularism was the point, the french state would have launched a social crusade against the Catholic church decades ago
It's not a coincidence the law was implemented in 2004 at the height of the war on terror
I think you're underestimating how aggressive french laicity originally had to be to extract a church that was entrenched deep within government and culture and felt entitled to exert more ultraconservative political influence than it is today:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1905_French_law_on_the_Separation_of_the_Churches_and_the_State
Other moves towards secularism included:
the introduction of divorce and a requirement that civil marriages be performed in a civil ceremony[12]
legalizing work on Sundays[13][14]
making seminarians subject to conscription[14][15]
secularising schools and hospitals[8][12]
abolishing the law ordaining public prayers at the beginning of each parliamentary session and of the assizes[14][16]
ordering soldiers not to frequent Catholic clubs[17]
removing the religious character from the judicial oath and religious symbols from courtrooms[18]
forbidding the participation of the armed forces in religious processions[14]
Oh cool, looking forward to this rehashing of the 2017 era "Islam isn't a race, therefore islamophobia has no connection to racism" rhetoric.
secular means not taking a religious stance and being neutral about it. Being secular would mean letting people wear them as they choose not allowing people to wear religious attire is taking a religious stance and thus isn't secular
rather than secularity this is religious persecution
Do they ban catholic children wearing crosses around their necks?
I think a better line is that they have school on Fridays but not on Sundays
They do according to the article and what I know
Yes of it's visible. Religious symbols are allowed to be worn if they are not visible.
Religion is a private matter. When you start spreading it all over the place, then no, it has no place in school or in our (France) society in general.
I was the victim of this attitude when I was a teen and my family wanted me to follow our religion and yet I still agree with this attitude. My main beef wasn't with the institution but with how specific teachers decided to deal with me. Ultimately I got over religion, and hopefully some of those kids will, too.
Yes
I would be less likely to reject that totally if it wasn't because of the obvious inequality of enforcement
You're arguing with people from Hexbear. You'd have better luck against a brick wall.
Hexbears: Stronger than brick walls.
You heard it here first folks!
:)
Love to tacitly admit I can't have a conversation if the other person points out things like "why what I said was wrong"
Yeah no shit a brick wall will let you say all the dumb shit you want without pushback
Step right up
I agree, face the wall