It's déjà vu. First it was schoolgirls wearing headscarves, then mothers wearing headscarves, and now it's men and women wearing either the abaya or the khamis, two loose-fitting garments, that are in the firing line.
Since an 1882 law introduced compulsory education, and one in 1905 separated Church and State, secularism in schools has been repeatedly put to the test − then reinforced by new bans and laws. While these rules were initially aimed at curbing the return of Catholic symbols to schools, for the past 30 years debates have almost exclusively centered on Islamic symbols in public spaces.
In the inter-war period, France was split between defenders of republican schools and an opposition of royalist, nationalist and identitarian Catholic movements such as Action Française.
Young people were also a part of the conflict, with several organizations trying to rally them to their cause. Young militants flaunted what side they were on by wearing stickers with slogans or images on them, which caused tension and brawls, even in schools. The minister of national education, Jean Zay, proclaimed that "schools must remain the inviolable refuge where men's quarrels do not penetrate." On December 31, 1936, Zay signed a notice banning political propaganda in schools.
The Catholic far right defended France's Christian identity and called for the return of religious symbols to schools. On May 15, 1937, Zay added a short paragraph prohibiting "religious propaganda" to a second decree. It was a "simple addendum, a sort of showing remorse toward secular groups," notes historian Olivier Loubes in the magazine Vingtième Siècle.
The Vichy regime put an end to the Third Republic and its principles. Secularism was questioned. Crucifixes were reinstalled in several public places, including schools, provoking anger from schoolteachers, who launched the Resistance magazine L'Ecole Laïque in 1941.
The reactions from the education authorities and in schools across the country were strong enough for Admiral Darlan, vice-president of the Collaborationist Council of Ministers, to concede in a circular dated April 15, 1941 that schools "receive children of all faiths" and cannot be placed "under a religious symbol."
But in practice, this circular did not prevent crucifixes being put back in public schools. It was only after the Liberation that they were removed again, and in 1946, the Fourth Republic reaffirmed the secular nature of schools.
Over the years, issues relating to secularism have shifted from Catholicism to Islam. By the end of the 1980s, the Islamic headscarf was being worn in over 150 establishments, according to a report cited by former interior minister Pierre Joxe on the TV program "Complément d'enquête." However, it did not receive much attention.
The situation changed in autumn 1989, when three Muslim teenage girls aged 13 and 14 were expelled from the Gabriel-Havez secondary school in Creil, a suburb north of Paris, because they refused to remove their headscarves, which covered their hair and shoulders, in class. The school's principal, Ernest Chénière, believed that they were not complying with the 1937 circular and were endangering "secular serenity."
The issue became political. The Socialist presidential majority, who had dismissed it as a mere news story, was taken by surprise by the intensity of public debate. Chénière, who maintained his firm stance in front of the cameras, was co-opted by the far right, although he tried to distance himself.
After the then-minister of education Lionel Jospin took charge of the affair, the Conseil d'Etat, France's highest administrative court, handed down a nuanced decision on November 27, 1989: While outlawing religious signs of an "ostentatious or assertive" nature, it considered wearing a headscarf to not be incompatible with secularism, and left it to school principals to judge on a case-by-case basis.
It took the involvement of the prime minister and the Moroccan consul to reach a compromise allowing the three girls to return to school wearing their headscarves, but taking it off in class.
The issue resurfaced at the end of 2002 with the case of a high school student wearing a headscarf in Lyon. She was excluded from almost all of her classes, but not from the school, after the board of education intervened. The teachers, who felt deprived of their authority, went on strike. "The law requires teachers to judge ostentatiousness for themselves. This prerogative is impossible," said the Syndicat National des Enseignements de Second Degré in left-leaning daily newspaper Libération.
In February 2002, Rassemblement pour la République (center-right) MP Jacques Myard tabled a bill against the "Islamic headscarf" in schools, which he described as "a symbol of sexual discrimination." Unusually, the issue crossed traditional political divides: Part of the left was in favor, like former culture minister Jack Lang, while part of the right was opposed, like former president Nicolas Sarkozy.
President Jacques Chirac installed a cross-party commission made up of politicians, thinkers and academics, and chaired by Médiateur de la République Bernard Stasi. In December, his report recommended both greater recognition of Islam, for example by including Eid al-Adha among public holidays, and a ban on "dress and signs manifesting religious or political affiliation."
This report inspired the law of March 15, 2004, which stipulates that "in public middle and highs schools, the wearing of symbols or clothes through which pupils clearly show a religious affiliation is prohibited." While the law primarily targets the headscarf, it also bans Jewish yarmulkes, large Catholic crosses and Sikh turbans from schools.
Put to rest for a few years, the controversy resurfaced in the 2010s. In 2011, the then-education minister Luc Chatel announced that the government wanted to ban mothers joining schoolchildren on field trips from wearing headscarves. A circular was published in 2012, but the Conseil d'Etat objected that, as neither "public agents" nor official "workers" with a public service, mothers helping out on school trips are not legally subject to the "requirements of religious neutrality."
The subject resurfaced yet again in February 2019 when, in the name of the "fight against communitarianism," the Les Républicains (right) MP for the Alpes-Maritimes department, Eric Ciotti, tried once again to legislate against mothers wearing headscarves on school trips. Despite the support of national education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer, the idea was finally rejected by MPs.
The controversy came back a few months later, after a far-right Rassemblement National politician verbally abused and even manhandled a school chaperone wearing a headscarf during a regional council meeting in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. It was an opportunity for France's right wing to take up their old refrain again: "If the headscarf is banned in schools, it must also be banned from school trips," said the Les Républicans president, Christian Jacob.
The right-wing Sénat majority was again trying to push through a ban on headscarves on school outings in the summer of 2021, via an amendment to the Anti-Separatism Bill, which attempted to extend the 2004 law to apply to "all people participating in the public education service." But the Assemblée Nationale once again rejected the proposal.
The debate then refocused on students' clothing. In November 2022, a memo from the French ministry of education noted an increase in reports of the wearing of abayas, khamis and djellabas, three items of clothing common in Muslim countries.
Then-education minister Pap Ndiaye published a memo calling for dialogue, and, in the event of failure, "systematic and progressive" sanctions. The right thought the text was too timid and difficult to apply, as it shifted the responsibility onto school principals.
At the end of August 2023, his successor, Gabriel Attal, went further and announced his clear intention to ban the abaya and khamis in schools, applicable from the start of the new school year. In a memo, the ministry said that wearing these outfits "clearly demonstrates a religious affiliation in a school environment" and must lead to dialogue with the pupil, and, in the event of refusal, "disciplinary procedure."
The left-wing opposition is divided between secularist and inclusive factions. Some, like the La France Insoumise MP Eric Coquerel, condemned it as a "form of racism," as the religious connotation of these garments is disputed by the French Council of the Muslim Faith. The measure has also been deemed disproportionate and unenforceable, as abayas and khamis are difficult to distinguish from other long garments.
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.