The police to the rescue of National Education.

Gérald Darmanin asked the prefects on Monday to "support the educational community in an essential reaction of great firmness in the face" of attacks on secularism at school which "have multiplied since the start of the school year".

In a telegram to the prefects to which AFP had access, the Minister of the Interior and the Secretary of State for Citizenship, Sonia Backès, argue that the multiplication of "reports of attacks on secularism since the start of the school year , is clearly the result of an Islamist offensive aimed at the youngest, in particular through the encouragement to wear traditional clothes”.

On Sunday, the Minister of National Education, Pap Ndiaye, considered that faced with this phenomenon, the 2004 law should "be applied strictly and firmly".

This law prohibits conspicuous religious clothing or signs within school premises.

More than 300 reports

On Thursday, the Ministry of National Education published the figures for attacks on secularism in schools, colleges and high schools for September, showing an increase in reports for wearing outfits such as abayas and qamis (long traditional clothes worn respectively by women and by men).

A total of 313 reports were recorded last month and 904 in the second quarter of 2022. This is an increase from the average of 627 incidents recorded in the first quarter of 2022.



Incidents of “wearing religious signs and dress” account for more than half of September reports (54%), compared to 41% in the second quarter of 2022 and 22% in the first quarter.

In this telegram to the prefects, the Minister of the Interior clarified in his own hand that Sonia Backès and himself were "with the Minister of National Education very attentive to this subject".

Sanctions against students

The prefects are asked to provide “all the necessary assistance to the personnel of the educational community who would be the object of threats, even attacks in connection with the strict application of the principle of secularism”.

And in the event that they are seized of "cases of wearing traditional clothing in schools" to provide assistance for the application of the 2004 law.

The two ministers recall that the wearing of clothes such as "abayas or qamis are indeed religious clothes by destination since the purpose attached to their wearing is beyond doubt and constitutes an attempt to circumvent them". of the law of 2004. Consequently, add the ministers, “heads of establishments are entitled to take sanctions against the pupils at the origin of such behavior and to prohibit their access to their establishment”.

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Attacks on secularism: "Still work to do" according to Minister Pap Ndiaye

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Attacks on secularism: More than 300 reports in September in colleges and high schools

  • Company

  • National Education

  • Gerald Darmanin

  • Islamist

  • Pap Ndiaye

  • Law

  • Ministry of Education

  • Secularism