France will ban children from wearing the abaya in state-run schools, its education minister said. Photograph: AFPFrance will ban children from wearing the abaya – the loose-fitting, full-length robes worn by some Muslim women, in state-run schools – its education minister said on Sunday in advance of the back-to-school season.
France, which has enforced a strict ban on religious signs in state schools since 19th-century laws removed any traditional Catholic influence from public education, has struggled to update guidelines to deal with a growing Muslim minority. In 2004, it banned headscarves in schools and passed a ban on full face veils in public in 2010, angering some in its five million-strong Muslim community.
Defending secularism is a rallying cry in France that resonates across the political spectrum, from left-wingers upholding the liberal values of the Enlightenment to far-right voters seeking a bulwark against the growing role of Islam in French society.