Opinion | In France, schools’ ban on abayas sends powerful message about who ‘belongs’ in French culture
- Catholic symbols are often embraced as integral to French culture, while Muslim symbols are scrutinised or barred
- It is unclear how the ban will affect students, with only about 300 students out of France’s 12 million going to school on September 4 wearing an abaya
Yet polls suggest that more than 80 per cent of the French population supports the ban, as does the country’s highest court: The Conseil d’État has upheld the challenged ban twice – most recently on September 25.
Education Minister Gabriel Attal cited “laïcité”, or French secularism, as the reason for the ban. Legislation passed in 2004 prohibits “ostentatious religious symbols” from public schools, including large crosses and Jewish head coverings, though its main target has been Muslim headscarves.
Debate over the abaya, however, gets to the heart of debates over laïcité. Many critics argue that the abaya is a cultural garment, not a religious one, and should be allowed under laïcité. In practice, though, anything associated with Muslim cultures tends to be considered “religious”. Catholic traditions, meanwhile, are often considered “cultural” – and therefore compatible with laïcité.
My ethnographic research in French schools, where secularism debates are particularly heated, suggests that the abaya ban and the earlier “headscarf law” are not really about defending laïcité. Rather, they protect a particular version of French identity – an identity infused with Catholic culture.
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France's secular war: Muslim abaya dress banned in state schools
‘Catho-laïcité’
Despite its reputation as a staunchly secular country, France has a deep and tangled relationship with Catholicism.