Abaya in France: the father of a high school girl prosecuted after death threats against a principal

In France, a father is prosecuted for "threatening to intimidate a person in charge of a public service mission" after threatening the principal of his daughter's high school. She was not allowed access to the establishment because she was wearing an abaya, a garment banned since the start of the school year on Monday.

A woman carrying an abaya in the streets of Lille, August 28, 2023. © DENIS CHARLET / AFP

By: RFI Follow

Advertising

Read more

The scene takes place Thursday in front of a high school in Clermont-Ferrand in the center of the country. School officials are filtering entries to enforce the Ministry of Education's new directive: no abaya in progress.

So they ask a teenage girl to remove the long dress that covers her clothes. She refuses. Access to the establishment is prohibited. A little later, his father picks up his phone and alternately makes death threats and threats to the principal to an agent and then to a senior education counsellor (CPE). He was taken into custody the same day. The 44-year-old will now have to explain himself before the criminal court at the end of October. In the meantime, he has been released and is under judicial control.

Death threats taken seriously

The Minister of Education castigated unacceptable and unspeakable remarks. Gabriel Attal said that the head of the school would now be accompanied by police officers, to ensure his safety. Death threats against national education staff have received increased attention in France since the assassination at the end of 2020 of the history and geography teacher, Samuel Paty, killed by an 18-year-old Chechen jihadist who accused him of having shown caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in class.

On Monday, the day of the start of the school year and the beginning of the implementation of the ban on the wearing of abaya and qamis at school, some 300 students, out of the 12 million who returned this week, still showed up with one of their covering clothes, according to a count of the ministry. 67 girls refused to remove it.

" READ ALSO France: behind the controversy on the abaya, a return to school marked by the lack of teachers

(And with AFP

NewsletterReceive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

Share:

Read on on the same topics:

• France
• Education
• Justice