“The abaya will no longer be allowed to be worn at school” in France, Education Minister Gabriel Attal announced today ahead of the start of the new school year, saying he wants to give “clear rules at national level” to school heads.

The minister, when asked about this contentious issue for months following incidents linked to the use of this garment — a long traditional dress that covers the entire body — announced to the TF1 television network that he would like to speak “from the coming week” with school officials to help them implement this ban.

“Secularism is a freedom for emancipation through the school,” the minister said. As soon as he was appointed head of the Ministry of National Education and Youth at the end of July, he ruled that schoolgirls going to school wearing abayas is “a religious gesture, which aims to test the resistance of the Republic to the focus of secularism that should be the school”. and promised to be “decisive on this matter”.

“You walk into a schoolroom, you shouldn’t be able to tell the religion of female students by looking at them,” he told TF1 again today.

The issue of the use of the abaya, which is not a Muslim religious symbol according to the French Council of Muslim Worship (CFCM), was already the subject of a circular by the Ministry of National Education last November. In that circular, the abaya is considered — like the bandana and the long skirt, which are also listed — as clothing that can be prohibited if it is “worn in such a way as to clearly show a religious belief.”

But school leaders have been waiting for clearer rules on the matter in the face of a surge in incidents.

According to a government memo, a copy of which was obtained by Agence France-Presse, attacks on secularism — much higher after the 2020 killing of professor Samuel Pati near the college where he taught — increased by 120% between the 2022 school year and -2023 and 2021-2022. The use of symbols and clothing, which led to the most attacks, increased more than 150% during the last school year.

After the law of March 15, 2004 “in public schools, colleges and high schools it is prohibited to use symbols or clothing with which students visibly show their religious faith”.