France to ban Muslim abaya dresses in schools

France will ban school pupils from wearing the abaya, a loose-fitting, full-length dress some Muslim women wear, in state-run schools, Education Minister Gabriel Attal announced on Sunday.

Attal said the ban was necessary to ensure that students are not identified by their religion in the classroom. “When you walk into a classroom, you shouldn’t be able to identify the pupils’ religion just by looking at them,” he said.

The ban is in line with a French law passed in 2004 that prohibits the wearing of “conspicuous religious symbols” in schools. The law applies to large crosses, Jewish kippas, and Islamic headscarves, but had not previously been interpreted to include the abaya.

The announcement has been met with mixed reactions. Head teachers’ union leader Bruno Bobkiewicz welcomed the ban, saying that it would help to ensure that schools are secular environments. However, left-wing opposition France Unbowed party member Clementine Autain condemned the ban as a “policing of clothing” and argued that it was “unconstitutional” and against the founding principles of France’s secular values.

Autain accused the French government of harboring an “obsessive rejection” of the country’s some 5 million Muslim population.