France Will Bar Girls From Wearing Muslim Robes in Public School, Minister Says

France will ban girls from wearing the abaya, the loose-fitting, full-length robes worn by some Muslim women, in government schools, the education minister said, as 13 million students prepared to return to classes. 

The move sets up a possible clash between the rigorously secular French state and conservative Muslim parents.

"It will no longer be possible to wear an abaya at school," Education Minister Gabriel Attal told TF1 television on Sunday, promising to lay down "clear rules at the national level" ahead of the return to classes on September 4.

"Secularism means the freedom to emancipate oneself through school," Attal said, describing the abaya as "a religious gesture, aimed at testing the resistance of the republic toward the secular sanctuary that school must constitute.

"You enter a classroom, you must not be able to identify the religion of the students by looking at them," he said.

France has maintained a strict ban on religious symbols in state schools since the 19th century, when traditional Catholic influence was stripped from public education, but authorities have struggled to update the rules to address a growing Muslim minority.

The French Council of Muslim Faith, a national body representing a broad spectrum Muslim organizations, has said items of clothing alone don’t constitute a “a religious sign.”

A 2004 law banned "the wearing of signs or outfits by which students ostensibly show a religious affiliation" in schools, including large crosses, Jewish kippas and Islamic headscarves.

But abayas — a long, flowing garment worn to comply with Islamic beliefs on modest dress – weren’t explicitly banned. 

The education ministry issued a circular last November describing the abaya as part of a category of clothing — including bandannas and long skirts — that could be banned if "worn in a manner as to openly display a religious affiliation."