By Ali Karbalaei
TEHRAN- Children in French schools will no longer be allowed to wear the Abaya, a long loose-fitting dress worn by Muslim women.
The Education Minister, Gabriel Attal, said that the style of the long, flowing dresses worn by some Muslim women, would no longer be allowed when the new school term begins next week because they allegedly violate the French principle of secularism.
“I have decided that the Abaya could no longer be worn in schools,” Attal told French television. “When you walk into a classroom, you shouldn’t be able to identify the pupils’ religion just by looking at them.”
France has a strict ban on religious symbols in schools that have mainly impacted the country's Muslim community.
In 2004, France banned Muslim female students from wearing their headscarves at schools. And in 2010, France banned full-face veils in public, drawing the anger of the five million-strong French Muslim community living in the country.
Late last year, former education minister Pap Ndiaye identified the Abaya as a garment that can "take on a possible religious character" even if it is not an explicitly religious symbol.
Ndiaye said he was against banning the Abaya, telling the Senate, "The Abaya is not easy to define, legally... it would take us to the administrative tribunal, where we would lose".
He also noted that he did not want “to publish endless catalogs to specify the lengths of dresses”.
The debate continued to drag on this year.
Reacting to the announcement, former presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon and the leader of La France Insoumise said the September return to school was being “politically polarised by a new absurd form of war of religion”.
France's Council of Muslim Worship said the Abaya is "mistaken" by some as a Muslim religious sign.
"Any item of clothing is not a religious sign in itself," the group said in a statement in June.
"You only have to travel through Muslim-majority countries to realise that the citizens of these countries, of all faiths, are indistinguishable based on the clothes they wear," it added.
The government spokesperson, Olivier Véran, said the Abaya was “obviously” a religious garment and “a political attack, a political sign” that he saw as an act of “proselytising” or trying to convert to Islam.
But many on the left have also condemned the move, including Clementine Autain, an MP from the leftist Insoumise party, who criticized what she called the "clothes police" and a move "characteristic of an obsessional rejection of Muslims".
Some academics agreed the move could be counterproductive, all the more as it touched on clothing they said was worn for identity rather than religion.
"It's going to hurt Muslims in general. They will, once again, feel stigmatized," said sociologist Agnes De Feo. "It's really a shame because people will judge these young girls, while it (the Abaya) is a teenage expression without consequences."
Loubna Regui, president of the ELF-Muslim Students of France, told Al Jazeera the ban was “inherently racist”.
Activists say banning the Abaya is more than just policing people's bodies but essentially degrading them, arguing that whenever you limit somebody's ability on what they can wear in accordance to their faith, it's a form of degradation, belittlement and keeps them under the control of the state.
They say what the Abaya or hijab represents is a form of power, and that is viewed as a threat to the government of French President Emmanuel Macron.
Other activists say there is a lack of respect and knowledge on the part of the French government and authorities toward Islam.
France, a former colonial country, occupied many countries in Africa. It colonized the Muslim states Algeria, Morrocco, and Tunisia in North Africa. It committed numerous atrocities during colonialism.
Many Algerians, Moroccans and Tunisians who immigrated to France and are citizens of the country today complain that there is a lack of respect toward them and a lack of understanding or sympathy by French authorities toward their Islamic faith.
Macron himself is currently under fire domestically.
The French leader’s controversial pension measures saw mass nationwide protests this year that morphed into other grievances in French society.
Critics have accused Macron of tapping into far-right ideologies with this latest ban targeting Muslims to regain his popularity which has sunk to a record low.
The move to ban the Abaya has been quickly welcomed by those on the far right of the French political spectrum and their supporters.
Right-wing politician Eric Zemmour, head of the small Reconquest! party opposed to immigrants, said on social media that “banning Abayas is a good first step if it is applied.”
The head of the conservative Les Republicains party, Eric Ciotti, was also quick to welcome the move, which he said was long overdue.
Sophie Venetitay, from the SNES-FSU teachers' union, said it was important to focus on dialogue with pupils and families to ensure the ban did not take children away from state-run schools to go to religious schools.
“What is certain is that the Abaya is not the main problem for schools,” she told Reuters, stressing that a lack of teachers was a much bigger issue.
According to the union, around 65% of high school teachers in France attended nationwide strikes earlier this year. In some schools, the rate was as high as 80%, and some schools were closed in protest against Macron's pension reform, which has seen a wave of teachers leaving their jobs.
The union has slammed Macron for not focusing on the bigger issues plaguing the French schools.
To enforce the ban on Abayas in classrooms, Attal said 14,000 educational personnel in leadership positions would be trained by the end of this year, and 300,000 personnel would be trained by 2025.
The ban by Attal, who is close to President Macron, has certainly triggered a fresh political debate about France’s secular rules and how they are discriminating against the country’s Muslim minority.
It also comes at a time when French foreign policy has seen its iron grip on the Sahel and Horn of Africa quickly disappear.
France's heavy participation in the Ukraine war has also seen a cost-of-living crisis back home with inflation rising.
The move is being seen as an ideal time for the French government to divert attention, both on domestic and foreign front, and put out another announcement that targets Muslims and their religion.
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