.EVERY FEW years the French get worked up about an item of religious clothing that they regard as inappropriate in the classroom. This time a controversy has actually broken out at la rentru00e9e, the start of the brand new academic year, over an authorities decision to ban coming from condition institutions the abaya, a full-length robe used through some Muslim ladies for quietness. To individuals in countries with a practice of liberal multiculturalism, the restriction looks like an improper breach of the right to theological expression.
To defenders of a stringent variation of French secularism, it is actually a measure needed to guard the commonwealth coming from religious obstruction. Why is France therefore concerned concerning Muslim wear its own colleges?