PARIS — France’s training minister introduced Monday a ban on lengthy robes in lecture rooms beginning with the brand new college 12 months, saying the clothes worn primarily by Muslims are testing secularism within the nation’s colleges.
Critics say that abayas, worn by girls, and khamis, the male garb, are not more than a trend assertion. They are saying the clothes don’t represent an ostentatious signal of faith and shouldn’t be banned from lecture rooms beneath a 2004 regulation.
For Gabriel Attal, the lately appointed training chief, the clothes are “an infringement on secularism,” a foundational precept for France, and, in some instances, a bid to destabilize colleges.
The 34-year-old Attal, appointed in July, was doubtlessly transferring right into a minefield together with his ban on lengthy robes to “defend” secularism, prompted by rising studies of the clothes in some lecture rooms across the nation. Earlier statements and legal guidelines on secularism have seeded acrimonious debate.
“Our colleges are regularly examined. We all know that,” Attal stated at a information convention per week forward of the beginning of the college 12 months. He stated that the carrying of abayas and khamis, a “new phenomenon,” has lately grown, and should be met with a agency response to sort out what generally quantities to “infringements, makes an attempt at destabilization.”
“We should stand collectively. We’ll stand collectively. … The abaya has no place in class, not more than non secular symbols,” Attal stated, referring to the 2004 regulation which banned Muslim headscarves, Jewish kippas, massive crosses and different “ostentatious” non secular accoutrements from lecture rooms.
French authorities have more and more moved to defend secularism, a constitutional precept meant to ensure non secular neutrality, as society grows advanced in a multicultural nation during which some French Muslims search to point out their non secular identification. Authorities concern that non secular symbols are a gateway to Islamic radicalism, whereas some Muslims really feel stigmatized by efforts to make them conform. Islam is the second faith in France.
A 2021 regulation in opposition to what officers consult with as “separatism” was geared toward additional strengthening the French worth of secularism, together with amongst public servants. It gave new enamel to detection of indicators of Islamic radicalism, notably by strengthening oversight of mosques, colleges and sports activities golf equipment.
Voices rapidly have been raised in opposition to the plan to ban lengthy robes from colleges.
“For me, the abaya shouldn’t be a spiritual garb. It’s a sort of trend,” Abdallah Zekri, a pacesetter of the French Council for the Muslim Religion, stated on the information station BFMTV. The abaya is “a protracted and ample gown. It has nothing to do (with faith).” Zekri’s phrases mirrored the place of his group, that the abaya shouldn’t be a spiritual signal for Muslims.
Attal’s predecessor as training minister, Pap Ndiaye, did not crack down on lengthy robes within the classroom, successfully leaving the selection to highschool principals because the phenomenon grew. Up to now 12 months, indicators of infringement on secularism elevated 120% between the 2022-2023 college 12 months and the earlier one, from 2,167 to 4,710, based on a confidential notice obtained by the newspaper Le Monde. The rise was largely as a result of carrying of abayas and khamis.
“Public colleges should, in any respect prices, maybe greater than every other establishment, be shielded from non secular proselytism, from any embryo of communitarianism,” Attal stated, referring to the notion of communities leaning into their very own cultural, religious or different facets of their origins on the expense of their Frenchness.
To implement the ban on abayas and khamis in lecture rooms, Attal stated that 14,000 instructional personnel in management positions can be skilled by the tip of this 12 months to cope with the matter, and 300,000 personnel can be skilled by 2025. High directors will go to colleges searching for assist in addition to these “the place we decide particular must handle the beginning of college with them.”
The 2004 regulation banning non secular symbols in lecture rooms was handed after months of bitter wrangling and a marathon parliamentary debate. It was too early to say whether or not the training minister’s order banning lengthy robes from colleges would result in acrimony inside lecture rooms.
Arduous-right politician Eric Zemmour, head of the small Reconquest! occasion against immigrants, posted on X, the previous Twitter: “Banning abayas is a primary good step whether it is utilized.” He desires uniforms in lecture rooms. Lawmaker for the hard-left France Unbowed occasion, Clementine Autain, known as the transfer “anti-constitutional” and requested “How far will the garments police go?”