France Government has announced that it will ban Islamic garments known as abayas in schools from 4th September.
According to CBS news report, the Minister of Education, Gabriel Attal, who made this known in an interview on French TV channel TF1, said the ban aligned with “laicité,” France’s hard-line version of secularism, which prohibits outward signs of religion in schools.
“I have decided that the abaya could no longer be worn in schools. When you walk into a classroom, you shouldn’t be able to identify the pupils’ religion just by looking at them,” Attal said.
The move comes after months of debate over the wearing of abayas in French schools.
He said: “Secularism means the freedom to emancipate oneself through school,” describing the abaya as “a religious gesture, aimed at testing the resistance of the republic toward the secular sanctuary that school must be.”
He added that he would give clear rules at the national level before schools open after the summer break.