Like deja vu. After the veiled students, then the veiled mothers, it is now the abaya and the qamis, two loose garments from the Persian Gulf, which are in the sights of the public authorities.
Since the law of 1882 established compulsory education, and that of 1905 the separation of Church and State, secularism in schools has been repeatedly put to the test, then reinforced by new circulars. and laws.
While these initially aimed to stem the return of Catholic signs to schools, for the past thirty years they have had as their almost exclusive background debates on signs of belonging to Islam in the public space.
In the interwar period, France was fractured between the defenders of the republican school and the opposition of royalist, nationalist and identity-based Catholic movements, such as Action Française.
The debates do not spare young people, whom several organizations are trying to enlist. Young activists display their partisan preferences in the public space with badges in the shape of a butterfly, objects of tension and fights, even in schools. The Minister of National Education, Jean Zay, proclaims that “schools must remain the inviolable asylum where the quarrels of men do not penetrate”. On December 31, 1936, the radical signed a circular prohibiting political propaganda at school.
The Catholic far right also defends the Christian identity of France as well as the return of religious insignia to schools. On May 15, 1937, Jean Zay added in a second circular a short paragraph prohibiting “confessional propaganda”. A “simple additive, a kind of remorse intended for secular flocks”, understates the historian Olivier Loubes in the magazine Vingtième Siècle.
The Vichy regime put an end to the Third Republic and its principles. Secularism is questioned. Crucifixes were reinstalled in several public places, including schools, arousing the anger of teachers, who in 1941 launched the resistant magazine L’Ecole laïque.
The reactions within national education and on the ground were strong enough for Admiral Darlan, vice-president of the collaborationist council of ministers, to concede in a circular of April 15, 1941 that the school “received children of all faiths” and cannot be placed “under a religious symbol”.
In fact, this circular does not prevent the gradual return of crucifixes to public schools. These will be won at the Liberation, and in 1946, the Fourth Republic reaffirms the secular character of the school.
Over the years, issues related to secularism shifted from the Catholic religion to the Muslim religion. At the end of the 1980s, the Islamic headscarf was worn in more than 150 establishments, according to a report quoted by former interior minister Pierre Joxe in the program “Complément d’Enquête”. However, it is not given special attention.
The situation changed in the fall of 1989, when three Muslim teenagers aged 13 and 14 were expelled from the Gabriel-Havez college in Creil (Oise) because they refused to take off their headscarves in class, which covered their hair and shoulders. The principal of the establishment, Ernest Chénière, believes that they do not respect the circular of 1937 and endanger “secular serenity”.
The matter becomes political. The socialist presidential majority, who saw it as a simple news item, was taken aback by the intensity of the debates. The figure of Ernest Chénière, who embodies a posture of firmness in front of the cameras, is taken over by the far right, from which he dissociates himself.
Seized by the Minister of Education at the time, Lionel Jospin, the Council of State rendered a nuanced decision on November 27, 1989: while proscribing religious symbols of an “ostentatious or protesting” nature, he considered that the wearing of the veil is not incompatible with the exercise of secularism, and leaves the heads of establishment to judge on a case-by-case basis.
It will take the intervention of the Prime Minister and the Consul of Morocco for a compromise to allow the three schoolgirls to return to college wearing their headscarves, but bare hair in class.
The question resurfaced at the end of 2002 with the case of a veiled high school student in Lyon. She is excluded from almost all classes, but not from the establishment, after intervention by the rectorate. The teachers, who consider themselves deprived, go on strike. “The law requires teachers to make their own judgment of ostentatiousness. This prerogative is unbearable”, denounces the National Union of Secondary Education in Liberation.
In February 2002, RPR deputy Jacques Myard tabled a bill against the “Islamic headscarf” at school, which he described as a “symbol of sexual discrimination”. Rarely, the question goes beyond traditional political divisions: part of the left is in favor of it, like Jack Lang, while part of the right opposes it, like Nicolas Sarkozy.
President Jacques Chirac installs a cross-party commission composed of politicians, thinkers and academics, and chaired by the mediator of the Republic Bernard Stasi. In December, his report recommended both better recognition of Islam, for example by including Eid-el-Kébir among public holidays, and banning “dresses and signs showing religious or political affiliation”.
This report inspires the law of March 15, 2004 which stipulates that “in public schools, colleges and high schools, the wearing of signs or outfits by which students ostensibly manifest a religious affiliation is prohibited”. If it primarily targets the veil, this law also bans Jewish yarmulkes, large Catholic crosses and Sikh turbans from schools.
Extinguished for a few years, the controversies resurfaced in the 2010s. In 2011, the Minister of National Education Luc Chatel announced that he wanted to ban mothers accompanying school outings from wearing the veil. A circular was published in 2012, but the Council of State objected that, being neither “agents” nor “collaborators” of the public service, veiled mothers are not legally subject to the “requirements of religious neutrality”.
The subject resurfaced in February 2019 when, in the name of the “fight against communitarianism”, the deputy (Les Républicains, Alpes-Maritimes) Eric Ciotti once again tried to legislate against veiled attendants. Despite the support of the Minister of National Education Jean-Michel Blanquer, the idea was finally rejected by the deputies.
The controversy resurfaced a few months later, after the attack on a veiled school guide by elected officials from the National Rally, during a meeting of the regional council in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. The opportunity for the right to return to the charge: “If there is a ban on the veil at school, it must also be banned in the accompaniment of school trips”, pleads the president of the Republicans, Christian Jacob.
The right-wing Senate majority is again trying to push through the ban on headscarves on school trips in the summer of 2021, through an amendment to the anti-separatism bill, which attempts to expand the application of the 2004 law “to all persons who participate in the public service of education”. But the National Assembly once again rejects the proposal.
The debate then refocuses on the clothing appearance of the students. In November 2022, a national education note observed an increase in reports of wearing abayas, qamis and djellabas, three garments common in Muslim countries.
The Minister of National Education Pap Ndiaye publishes a circular which recommends dialogue, and, in the event of failure, a “systematic and graduated” sanction. A text deemed too timid by the right, and difficult to apply, because it shifts the responsibility to the heads of establishments.
At the end of August 2023, his successor, Gabriel Attal, outbids and announces his clear desire to ban the abaya and the qamis from the start of the school year. In a memo, the ministry considers that the wearing of these outfits “ostensibly manifests a religious affiliation in a school environment” and must motivate a dialogue with the student, then, in the event of refusal, a “disciplinary procedure”.
The left opposition is divided between secularist and inclusive lines. The latter denounces by the voice of the deputy (La France insoumise, Seine-Saint-Denis) Eric Coquerel, a “form of racism”, while the religious connotation of these clothes is disputed by the French Council of the Muslim faith. The measure is also deemed disproportionate and unenforceable, with abayas and qamis being difficult to distinguish from other long garments.
