On the front line on this thorny issue, the heads of establishments were waiting for clearer rules. They are heard. “We will no longer be able to wear an abaya at school”, announced this Sunday August 27 on TF1 Gabriel Attal. Asked about this controversial subject for several months after incidents related to the wearing of these outfits, a long traditional dress covering the whole body, the Minister of Education intends to speak “from next week” with school officials. to help them enforce this ban.
As soon as he was appointed to rue de Grenelle at the end of July, the minister judged that coming to school in an abaya was “a religious gesture, aimed at testing the resistance of the Republic to the secular sanctuary that the school must constitute”, promising to be “firm on this subject”. “You enter a classroom, you must not be able to identify the religion of the students by looking at them,” he further defended at TF1’s 8 p.m. newspaper this Sunday.
The issue of wearing the abaya, which is not a Muslim religious sign according to the French Council for Muslim Worship (CFCM) has already been the subject of a circular from the National Education Department last November. In this text, the abayas are considered – like the bandanas and long skirts, also mentioned – as outfits that can be prohibited if they are “worn in such a way as to manifest ostensibly a religious affiliation”. But the heads of establishments demanded clarification on this subject in the face of the resurgence of incidents.
“We welcome it”
The predecessor of Gabriel Attal, Pap Ndiaye, arrested by the unions of heads of establishments had however refused to “publish endless catalogs to specify the lengths of dresses”. “The instruction was not clear, now it is and we welcome it,” reacted to AFP Bruno Bobkiewicz, secretary general of the National Union of National Education management staff. “Now that the message is stated, it must be implemented in the establishments (…) the heads of establishment must not be alone in the face of the abayas”, he added.
According to a note from the state services, attacks on secularism, much more numerous since the assassination of Samuel Paty, increased by 120% between the 2022/2023 and 2021/2022 school year. The wearing of signs and outfits, which represent the majority of attacks, has increased by more than 150% throughout the last school year.