Religious clothing or fad? The Council of State examined Tuesday afternoon the ban on the abaya, contested by an association which denounces racial and sexist “discrimination”.
The decision of the Council of State will be rendered “within 48 hours”, specified the judge in chambers at the end of the hearing. The highest administrative court was seized by the association Action the rights of Muslims (ADM) which sees in this ban an “attack on the rights of the child”.
For nearly two hours, the debate revolved around the religious significance of clothing.
“Abaya means dress, coat”, launched ADM lawyer Vincent Brengarth, pointing out that the French Council for Muslim Worship (CFCM) “recalled quite categorically that the abaya could not be considered a religious but traditional clothing”.
“The subject is not to know whether Islam prescribes the wearing of this garment” but “the abaya immediately recognizes the person who wears it as belonging to the Muslim religion”, retorted Guillaume Odinet, director of legal affairs of the Ministry of Education.
At the heart of the debates: the decision taken on August 27 by the Minister of National Education Gabriel Attal to ban the wearing of the abaya in public schools, colleges and high schools, with a note to the heads of establishments.
For the association, there is “an evolution compared to existing law”. The ADM also deplores the lack of a precise definition of the abaya. But for the ministry “there is no ambiguity” about this garment, in a context of “extremely strong demand” from school leaders.
Speaking several times during the hearing, the president of the ADM Sihem Zine considered that “this circular is sexist, it only targets girls”. “It’s the Arabs who are targeted, that’s the real debate,” she added.
The CFCM also expressed concern on Tuesday about the “high risk of discrimination”, specifying in a press release that it “reserves the right” to seize the Council of State on this subject.
As 12 million students returned to school this week, Mr. Brengarth lamented a “desire to make a sort of political workhorse” of this subject “while it is residual”.
Many, on the side of the unions, have also regretted for a week that the subject obscures the difficulties of National Education in the media.
The ministry considers that the phenomenon “has taken on a considerable scale” at the last school year.
On Monday, 298 students showed up in their abaya despite the ban, Mr. Attal announced. “67 did not agree” to withdraw it and “went home”, he added, promising that the dialogue would continue to convince them.
On this explosive subject, the political debate quickly ignited, even dividing the left: elected officials from the PS and the PCF approved the ban in the name of secularism, while LFI denounced an Islamophobic decision and environmentalists a “stigmatization “.
The French, for their part, approve the minister’s decision at 81%, according to an Ifop poll for Charlie Hebdo: 58% of LFI supporters are in favor, like 73% of socialists and even 79% of Greens.
“We also live in our society with a minority, people who, hijacking a religion, come to challenge the Republic and secularism,” said Emmanuel Macron on Monday who, to explain the context, mentioned the assassination of Samuel Paty, teacher killed in 2020 after showing his students caricatures of Muhammad.
The subjects of the veil or outfits linked to religious affiliation have been regularly in the news since 1989 and the Creil affair, when three young veiled girls were expelled from their college.
In 2004, the law banned the wearing of signs or outfits showing “ostensibly” a religious affiliation and in 2010, the ban on the full veil caused an international controversy.
In 2016, the Council of State suspended an anti-burkini decree issued by the town of Villeneuve-Loubet (Alpes-Maritimes) due to a lack of “proven risks” to public order.
09/05/2023 19:06:44 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP