PARIS: French authorities have begun enforcing a recently announced ban on the abaya, Muslim dress for women in schools, with over 500 schools under scrutiny as students across the country returned to class on Monday.
The government declared last month that the abaya would be prohibited in schools, citing a violation of secularism rules in education. These rules had already led to the ban on Muslim headscarves, as they were seen as a display of religious affiliation.
The decision was applauded by the political right but criticized by the hard-left as an infringement on civil liberties.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne also visited to a school in northern France to check the implementation of the new rules.
On this occasion, he said that things are going well. There is no incident for the moment. “We will continue all day to be vigilant so that the students understand the meaning of this rule.”
However, she mentioned that there were “a certain number” of schools where girls had arrived wearing abayas.
“Some young girls agreed to remove it. For the others, we will have discussions with them and use educational approaches to explain that there is a law being applied,” she added.
Schools Under Security for Abaya Ban
The hard-left accused President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist government of trying to compete with Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally and shifting further to the right by implementing the abaya ban.
Education Minister Gabriel Attal stated that authorities had identified 513 schools that could be affected by the ban at the beginning of the school year. France has approximately 45,000 schools, with 12 million students returned to school on Monday.
