France: the absence of clear instructions on wearing the abaya source of annoyance at school
French Minister of National Education Pap Ndiaye visiting Bois d'Aulne college in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine.
(Drawing).
© AFP - GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT
Text by: RFI Follow
1 min
This Tuesday, October 4 on France 2, the French Minister of National Education recognized it: the number of reports for Islamic outfits in schools is increasing.
At the top, we find the abaya for girls, a long tunic that covers the whole body, from the neck to the feet.
Outfits that sometimes leave the principals helpless.
They demand clear instructions from the Ministry of Education.
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In his high school of 1,700 students, in the west of France, Gwenael Surel, principal, notes an upsurge in abayas: “
At the beginning of September, it concerned around fifteen students.
»
For this trade unionist, member of the SNPDEN-UNSA union, the difficulty is also to make young girls recognize that it is indeed a religious outfit: “
You can find large tunics in very Europeanized stores.
So indeed, they try to refer sometimes, on the question of colors and on the question of form, to simply a tunic.
There is a desire to organize to circumvent the law.
»
630 violations of secularism recorded…
The law is that of 2004 which prohibits any ostentatious religious sign at school.
So to avoid entering into conflict with the student and his parents, several heads of establishments ask the Ministry of Education for clear instructions.
This is the case of Audrey Chanonat, principal of a college in Charente: "
The National Education leaves the heads of establishments a little helpless on this question, because the texts that have come out say that it is at the discretion of the headteacher to say whether the garment worn is a religious sign or not.
Which actually puts us in trouble.
»
In schools, nearly 630 attacks on secularism have been recorded for the first four months of 2022. A figure that could explode and therefore leads principals to alert National Education.
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