Pupils will be banned from wearing abayas, loose-fitting full-length robes worn by some Muslim women, in France’s state-run schools, the education minister has said.
The rule will be applied as soon as the new school year starts on 4 September.
France has a strict ban on religious signs in state schools and government buildings, arguing that they violate secular laws.
Wearing a headscarf has been banned since 2004 in state-run schools.
Can’t just let women wear what they want. Clearly lacking a penis makes them incapable of deciding what clothes to wear.
It seems like any religious emblems or clothing aren’t allowed in public schools, not so much that they can’t wear what they want.
I think it’s fair enough, it’s pretty obvious that religion and education are incompatible in the modern age. Anyone who disagrees with that is a “religious” person who’s never read a holy book.
I am a militant atheist and disagree with this decision completely. Freedom means nothing if it doesn’t include the freedom to make bad decisions.
Oh just to be clear: Jesus was talking to Satan not the Holy Ghost and Allah doesn’t exist.
There, the two unforgivable sins of the two major ones. I don’t much care for people claiming to be atheists without backing it up.
What? I honestly don’t understand what you’re trying to get across here
Just because I am an atheist does not mean I am against people having religion by law. I would prefer that no one has religion by choice. Just like I would prefer everyone to have healthy lifestyles. Just like I would prefer if we all stopped listening to rap-rock.
There is a difference between what I wish and what I think should be lawful.
But you probably couldn’t loudly play rap-rock in a public school, either. Doing something in private or in public are quite different.
I’m quite alright with the banning of religious symbols, but I do agree, banning what is essentially a robe, is a bit much. Then again, enforcing clothing standards is actually fairly common. People should be allowed to wear what they want, but within limits. I don’t think most people would find it appropriate if a stundent showed up to school in a bikini.
You are muddling distracting from learning with freedom of expression. They do not have to be in conflict. There is a difference between listening to vile music on your earbuds and blasting it. There is a difference between wearing a cross and standing on your desk to give the good news during math class.
There is also a difference between wearing a small cross around your neck and a t-shirt saying “sinners repent or burn in hell”.
The question is, where, between all these differences, do we draw the line. And for context, I’m not really with France on this one.
It s not only female its everyone . No one can were religion cloth. That just normal you are in a public place .
Banning clothes in public space is fascism.
I guess then we will force them to wear a special star and send them in special “protective” camps?
Let me guess, you’re either an american or an anglo?
I’m French. But I know what fascism or racism are so I understand it can be a bit unsettling.
Et si tu me crois pas à cause de l’anglais on peut faire le débat en français, mais j’avoue que parler avec des fascistes ignorants m’emmerde pas mal.
That’s not how it’s actually enforced. This is making new laws and regulations picking on a minority.
Except this kind of outfit is not religious at all. Abaya is basically just a dress which can be worn by anyone regardless their religion, unlike burqa and hijab. It’s like banning sari because Hindus women wear them, even though it’s not a religious cloth.
The goal here is to ban religious symbol, right? Not outright banning anything related to middle-eastern culture? Surely there is a reasonable middle ground between banning religious symbols and banning the entire ethnic culture.
They literally ban ALL forms of religious depictions in France. Women just get forced, by a religion, to wear specific clothes to adhere to arbitrary standards set by some old dead dude(s). This is super par for the course and makes a lot of sense for them. The only thing oppressive here is the religion that forces women to wear shit to fit some ideals/standards, especially children who don’t know any better and are forced into it/don’t have a concept of doing anything else.
To stop women from being forced to do something by the dead we force them to do something by the living. Makes perfect sense.
I once pulled a gun on someone and ordered them to be free.
France is not beating the racism (rather, l’racism) allegations
The especially dumb part of this is that abayas aren’t specifically Muslim or religious in nature, they’re cultural. They are a long flowing dress, without even a head covering. A bunch of non-Islamic women wear them in a variety of countries.
So this is more attempting to ban entire cultural outfits, which is ridiculous.
For context, the French are very strict about any form of symbol on what students wear. I couldn’t even wear a baseball cap with a team logo and that’s not religious.
Lol what the only reason they could prevent you from wearing a cap is because it’s considered ‘rude’ to keep your hat inside classroom. A private school can do whatever they want and force student to wear uniforme but in public school you can wear whatever you want except specific banned religious symbole (cross, kippa, headscarf etc…)
They just want to have a rule that doesn’t discriminate against any specific religion. Public schools have whatever rules the Government has elected. We had a weird mix between the local Government rules (mandatory uniform) plus the French public school rules (no outer religious symbols).
You forgot to mention that the abaya is compulsory in Saudi Arabia (except for tourists) and Qatar.
And that’s bad. Can we agree that making a dress compulsory and making a dress banned are both bad, because they both restrict choice?
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I agree let’s promote shorty and crop top in Quatar.
Saudi Arabia overturned that requirement in 2019, so you’re quite a few years out of date. It is required in Qatar though, yes.
The same “I know what’s best for them” and “the law applies equally to everyone” arguments in favor of bans on drugs that many in liberal spaces will detest, they will happily use when supporting shit like this. We all know that everyone doesn’t suffer equally under laws like this. Religion may be the opium of the people, but does that mean we should be the narcs? You don’t eradicate religion by banning it. You eradicate it by having secular institutions provide the things people go to religion for, like a sense of purpose, assistance, and community.
I totally support that. https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/little-hijabi-a-little-girls-love-for-her-hijab/9781504319508.html Kids wearing hijabs, abayas (put any religious symbol here) must be considered as a form of child abuse. It is crucial to refrain from imposing outdated and fantastical beliefs onto young minds.
The Abaya is cultural and not religious though.
So why is it mandatory for women in Quater and Saudi Arabia ?
Because their law requires it for “modesty reasons”, probably like a uniform of some sort, but it’s not a religious garment in Islam. It covers the whole body except the head, feet and hands. Anyone wearing an Abaya outside of Qatar and Saudi Arabia is doing so for cultural reasons, not religious reasons.
These kinds of laws should not oppress culture, unless we want to see an extinction of diversity. They should exist solely to limit religious child indoctrination, and give children a fighting chance to make their own decisions with regard to religion.
That’s exactly what this law is doing by banning religious sign into the public school. Pretenting that the introduction of this clothe, absolutely not present into the French culture, has nothing to do with the religion is fallacious.
Please don’t do this. The culture finds its foundation entirely within religious beliefs, and the abaya stands as a tangible expression of this connection. From the Wikipedia: “The rationale for the abaya is often attributed to the Quranic quote, “O Prophet, tell your wives and daughters, and the believing women, to cover themselves with a loose garment. They will thus be recognised and no harm will come to them” (Qur’an 33:59,[2] translated by Ahmed Ali). This quotation is often given as the argument for wearing the abaya.”
The cross is synonymous with Christianity, yet there’s an exception in this law for small crosses. If you want to go down this path, you must ban everything, with no exceptions.
France has adopted laicite for years and frankly it’s the right thing for secularism. It doesn’t stop people worshiping whoever or whatever they like in their spare time, or wearing whatever religious garb they want. But not on government property including state schools.
I can understand that, the intolerant culture attached to islam really detremental to integration effort and harmony in france, and by that they hope to remove that label in schools, which hopefully will make people interact more across cultural groups, and further integration.
People forget what happened to countries like Lebanon and Iran.
That kind of law doesn’t integrate anyone. It actually fuel racism and communautarism.
What’s good with these topics is that we instantly see who is a fascist though.
Great!
Hey Denmark, are you looking at this? This is how your treat religion. They are no better than anyone else and they do not deserve any kind of special treatment.
Hey Denmark, follow this advice to become a proper fascist country.
You don’t know shit about France and the challenges we’re facing. Stay in your line.
I live in France though. And I lived in 5 cities in various part of it, so I’m pretty sure I know the country.
And I know racists are a shame for France, the country of Lumières, révolution and résistance against fascism.
I didn’t realize being able to wear “loose-fitting full-length robes” was special treatment. Have atheists been unable to wear this type of clothing up until now?
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Atheists can wear a crucifix necklace too but it would still be considered a religious symbol
Even if one despises religion above all, as one should, there is no sufficient reason to ban this type of stuff.
On the other side, it is time to give these morons back what they have brought upon others and thus deserve.
My two cents, The ban is actually good. In school settings, religious headscarf/clothing makes you lot standout and people might get averse too it. This allows these people to actually mix in well with others.
The ban is good cause these kids are conditioned from birth to wear these. They haven’t explored things out of the religious context and how f* up religions are at controlling people.
We are landing on moon and we have religions claiming everything revolves around earth. I would outright ban all these cults.
How about instead of telling women what to wear you actually set up support structures for the women who have been abused by religion. This law is asinine and barely differs from religious nuts who force them to wear the headscarf.
do we not see how it’s different to ban crosses, the religious symbolism of the entrenched culture, the state, and the hegemonic culture - and the banning of headscarves and abayas, traditions associated with an oppressed minority? This is absolutely not just fair neutrality across the board on all religious expression, the kids will still be reading books by Christians, being taught by Christian teachers, following a curriculum decided by a Christian board and meeting education metrics voted on by Christian politicians so they can be part of the workforce in a Christian entrenched nation.
Any thoughts that this is good because they’re just treating all religions equally is enlightened centrism.
France isn’t really super Christian anymore for a Christian nation. About 50% of the French claims to be Christian and a 1/3 claims to have no religion. Compare that to Italy which is 80% Christian
What percent is Muslim? How is that proportionality among teachers, or among legislators? And how many laws are still enforced from a time when France was much more Christian? What is the religious makeup of those who wrote the French literary classics and the history textbooks?
It sounds like you’ve researched next to nothing of what you’re talking about and are just making grandstanding statements based on pre-existing conclusions.
I’m an atheist and consider all organized religion evil. But restricting what people can wear in school (apart from covering their genitals and not restricting movement or vision to the point that it hinders education) is indefensible.
I’m not sure I like this. I sort of get not allowing religious symbols to be worn, but you’re forcing people to dress in a certain way. I don’t think the government should be able to do that
At this point they should just mandate school uniform.
I’m not against it, honestly. I have seen the pros and cons of each. We had a loose dress code at my school but no uniforms, and style of dress certainly became one mode of division among students. Rich kids, poor kids, athletes, nerds, etc. were all separated by dress.
I’m not the biggest fan of conformity, but uniform dress codes allow the students to basically be at a level playing field as far as visual expression goes. I’ve worked in schools with uniforms and the students there seem to prefer not having to put any thought into what they wear.
What’s your thought on school’s uniform?
I never felt like there was much of a point for them. It was annoying for my family because we always had to buy specific clothes for school
The whole point nowadays is to stop kids being bullied for not being able to afford the “right” clothes; that’s part of the point of this law too
Yup. I’m thankful for school uniforms. I came from a poor family and being mocked for wearing cheap clothes would’ve been awful, I was already ridiculed enough for my background as-is.
Personally I’m with France on this one.
Prevention of tribes is the best benefit imo. I remember on school there were a number of ethnic/cultural groups that didn’t socialize with people out of their group. I don’t believe that fosters a healthy community, and behaviors or symbolic garments to identify you as a member of a group reinforce those group identities instead of all being human beings.
But religion and family should? 🤔
No, it those shouldn’t either. Which is why I’m conflicted here.
I’m playing Devil’s advocate honestly. I’m much more comfortable with Quebec’s take than France’s (which is similar but one step above, in Quebec it only applies to government employees in a position of authority)
As for religion you have the choice to follow it or not, and following it comes with the burden of wearing certain things but you can choose to not follow that religion whenever you want if you want to dress differently. In a public school you should be able to choose what you wear, because you pretty much have to go to school.
You can stop following it whenever you want?
You realise that we’re talking about kids here, right?
I agree with this. But my girlfriend would certainly not. We’re in France and yet the pressure of her family on religion makes it that even on point she doesn’t care much about, there is so much behind her that it’s a real real pressure to respect the religion, which is hard to sometimes imagine, and to me an atheist seems ridiculous, you should make your own choices, well, for her, simply because of the people she is with. Not following certain religious rules can cost her a lot. Economically or Mentally for exemple
Is condemning one thing endorsing another? Do two things wrongs make a right?
I get you, but… isn’t religion supposed to be a free decision? you’re agreeing to their terms and conditions (I know, I know, you can stop the laugh track).
You really believe that families religious enough to force their kids to wear certain clothes would accept that they renounce their religion?
Yep, hence the laugh track. I was raised as a Christian (atheist now) and I know first hand you don’t get to choose lol but renouncing a religion is not a crime (in my country at least)
Well up that laugh track to 11 when you hear what islam thinks about that last part
Yeah, I know such cases exists.
I get the reasoning, but really it feels like papering over cracks rather than addressing the root cause.
Set up proper support structures to prevent people from being coerced into things they don’t want to, make sure people are given places to get away from controlling people and exposed to the fact that things don’t have to be like that.
The best cure for religion is Education and Opportunities to fully integrate in the wider society.
So France needs to invest into giving the kids in even the baundelieres (the poor neighbourhoods around the major cities) as much Education and as many Opportunities as possible and most will naturally drift away from the snake oil which is religion.
You see the single biggest mechanic of racial descrimination (not just in France) is poverty: those kids from low education hence low income immigrant parents - who lack the education (hence the income) because they hail from countries with worse Education systems - are stuck in high crime low opportunity ghettos with much lower lifetime opportunities than the rest, impacted by poverty every day of their lifes (outright racism comes as events, poverty is every waking hour of every day) for the “crime” of having popped out of the “wrong” vagina.
Some manage to come out of this, but theirs is a much taller ladder to climb so their chances of reaching a good life are less than most.
The thing is, genuinelly flattenning the playing field (which, beyond the massive boost to average quality of life, would have the minor side effect of most of the next generation leaving the claws of religion) would cost lots of money and there’s no will in France to have people like the wealthiest man and woman in Europe (both of which live there) and their circle of friends part with a small fractionof their wealth to make it possible: hard-right neoliberal with authoritarian streak Macron would never do even the mildest of wealth redistributions (as it would impact his mates and his clients) so instead out comes another “let’s force them to not look ‘wrong’” authoritarian “solution”.
If you pardon my french (hehe!), this shit is all related and all boils down to how society is structured to help a few prey on the many resulting in massive inequality in access to resources and opportunities and constant, relentless discrimination on the basis of wealth, all of which then causes all sorts of “secondary” issues which are then papered over using the cheapest method there is to cover it up: abusing the Law and Legal Violence to coerce the most powerless of all to “keep up appearances”.
It’s not about stopping people from being coerced, it’s about the state forbidding religious symbols on state property including schools. France is strictly secular and forbids religion in the public sphere, i.e. state property like schools, politics etc.
It just so happens to have the pleasant side effect that kids in state schools are free from the segregation, clothing and other religious bullshit they might have to endure in their private life. The government has no control over that other aspect however it might lead to kids growing into adults who are less orthodox in their own lives.
Reading all the anti-privacy and self expression things that France are pushing…wouldn’t understand why anyone would want to move to france in this day and age.
Laicite has been a thing for a very long time. Simply put, France recognizes your right to believe any crap you like in your private life and recognizes religions under law, but people don’t get to practice their religion in the public sphere, e.g. on state property.
This is as opposed to US secularism which is barely lip service and constantly undermined. If you want an analogue, France erects a steel barrier between religion and governance whereas US erects a 4ft chain link fence.
Yeah, let’s ban garments because garments can be attributed to religion or fashion or culture or comfort or any or all combination of the above, in public spaces and alienate religious groups, let them homeschool their children, which may/may not breed more dogmatic/extremists views and then cry about immigrants screwing things up by not integrating just because setting up laws that separate religion and state weren’t enough. Laws can’t be enforced right? Like laws don’t discourage behaviors in a secular civil society right?
Genius moves there. I like the 5D chess this government is playing.
Homeschooling is a thing in every country. I don’t see how you can claim laicite is the cause of it, or even increases the risk of extremism.
What a narrow understanding of religion. That law is based on the understanding that “religion” is something completely inside the mind and maybe something you attend once a week. That may have been nice in 1700s Europe when the only religion around were denominations of Christianity but it doesn’t account for the many religions that mandate looks and dress and even some that require tattoos. Instead the state implicitly labels those religions as inferior or less civilized and goes out of their way to single them out for law enforcement.
And the “obey or leave” mindset in this thread is ignorant of history, as France involuntarily made all Algerians French citizens and declared their lands French territory. This 2004 law and new amendments singles them out.
Laicite has been a thing in France for over a 100 years. There is nothing “narrow” about it and it affected religions LONG before Muslims became the latest to experience it.
Laicite was created after Christians went to war against Christians. It still is trapped in that paradigm and is narrow because it fails to take into account the practices of other religions. For example, Christianity has almost no dietary laws but that’s not the case for Jews, Hindus, or Muslims. Should French schools require beef on the menu to avoid religious accommodation for Hindus? Should circumcision be banned in order to prevent Jewish boys from standing out in locker rooms?
Laicite is a narrow and antiquated mindset and there’s a reason other secular countries haven’t embraced it.
I’m pretty certain you know these are stupid arguments.
I’m not going to respond to ad hominem attacks. Peace.
Calling your arguments stupid is not ad hominem. But if you want me to elucidate then by all means:
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Forcing people to eat beef (or pork) is not covered by laicite. Wearing religious clothing & symbols on state property is. I’m sure a case to be made that schools should be sensitive to religious dietary restrictions and provide alternatives, but that’s not what you were saying.
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Circumcision is not covered by laicite at least insofar as school is concerned. Maybe there are regs about how it is performed in public hospitals. Wearing religious clothing & symbols on state property is.
All clear now?
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If I agree with some anti-privacy woes, France (and more broadly Europe) is way more privacy friendly than the US. We have to fight for it from time to time, but for now it goes mostly in the right direction.
As for religious stuff, to understand that you have to understand France. We are, due to our history, mostly irreligious (50% of the whole population in 2017), with most religious people being non-practicing. Like every country we have our religious nutjobs, but they are mostly irrevelant compared to the US ones.
As such, we as a whole generally consider that religion should not impact public life and public places nor be displayed in there, with some specific exception (nuns and priests, as it is considered as being an uniform mandated by their trade).School is a public space, as such public display of religion are forbidden. This is not specifically agains Muslim, the same would apply to a nun when going to school as a student. Other less ostensible religious sign, like crucifixes, are also banned.
All that is (mostly) to fight communitarianism, which is viewed here as a threat to society.Pretty progressive. Nice.
The bread
This is the way (to the nearest bakery of course)
