[ad_1]
PARIS — French Training Minister Gabriel Attal introduced on Sunday that France will ban the Islamic garment often called the abaya in colleges.
“The college of the Republic was constructed round sturdy values, secularism is considered one of them. … Once you enter a classroom, you shouldn’t be capable of determine the faith of pupils,” Attal stated in an interview with French TV channel TF1.
“I announce that [pupils] will not be capable of put on abaya in school,” he stated.
The abaya is a protracted, flowing gown generally worn by Muslim girls because it complies with Islamic beliefs on modest gown — nevertheless it’s additionally worn by different communities in North Africa and the Center East. In 2004, France banned non secular symbols in colleges, together with giant crosses, Jewish kippahs and Islamic headscarves. However the abaya occupies a grey zone and hasn’t particularly been banned.
Attal, who was appointed in July, introduced that he would lead talks within the coming weeks earlier than issuing new “clear nationwide guidelines” for colleges.
The concentrate on abayas follows a reported improve in women sporting Islamic clothes in French colleges, in a pattern that some say is a violation of the nation’s secularist values. Final month, President of the Nationwide Meeting Yaël Braun-Pivet, who’s a member of President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance celebration, referred to as for “a completely secular state college” the place there’s “no ramadan, no abaya, no ostentatious non secular indicators.”
Whereas some politicians have been calling for brand new laws to ban non secular gown, it seems the federal government will merely give college principals new pointers.
Secularism in French colleges has all the time been a hot-button matter with supporters claiming that faith, and Islam particularly, has been encroaching on the general public area. Critics, alternatively, keep that non secular minorities face discrimination in a traditionally Christian nation.
Tensions over schooling and faith worsened in 2020 when a radicalized Chechen refugee beheaded a French instructor who had proven caricatures of the prophet Mohammad in school.
[ad_2]
Source link