Students
will be banned from wearing abaya, a loose-fitting full-length robe
worn by some Muslim women, in France's state-run schools, the education
minister has said.
The rule will be applied as soon as the new school year starts on 4 September.
France has a strict ban on religious signs in state schools and government buildings, arguing that they violate secular laws.
Wearing a headscarf has been banned since 2004 in state-run schools.
"When
you walk into a classroom, you shouldn't be able to identify the
pupils' religion just by looking at them," Education Minister Gabriel
Attal told France's TF1 TV, adding: "I have decided that the abaya could
no longer be worn in schools."
The move comes after months of debate over the wearing of abayas in French schools.
The
garment has being increasingly worn in schools, leading to a political
divide over them, with right-wing parties pushing for a ban while those
on the left have voiced concerns for the rights of Muslim women and
girls.
"Secularism
means the freedom to emancipate oneself through school," Mr Attal told
TF1, arguing the abaya is "a religious gesture, aimed at testing the
resistance of the republic toward the secular sanctuary that school must
constitute."
He said that he would give clear rules at the national level before schools open after the summer break.
In
2010, France banned the wearing of full face veils in public which led
to anger in France's five million-strong Muslim community.
France
has enforced a strict ban on religious signs at schools since the 19th
Century, including Christian symbols such as large crosses, in an effort
to curb any Catholic influence from public education.
It
has been updating the law over the years to reflect its changing
population, which now includes the Muslim headscarf and Jewish kippa,
but abayas have not been banned outright.
The
debate on Islamic symbols has intensified since a Chechen refugee
beheaded teacher Samuel Paty, who had shown students caricatures of the
Prophet Mohammed, near his school in a Paris suburb in 2020.
The
announcement is the first major policy decision by Mr Attal, who was
appointed France's education minister by President Emmanuel Macron this
summer at the age of 34.
The CFCM, a national body representing many Muslim associations, has said items of clothing alone were not "a religious sign".
