LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon deplored on Monday the decision to ban the abaya in schools by the Minister of Education Gabriel Attal. “Sadness to see the back to school politically polarized by a new absurd entirely contrived religious war over women’s clothing,” he wrote on X (ex-Twitter). “When will there be civil peace and true secularism that unites instead of exasperating?” “Again asked the leader Insoumis.
Sadness to see the return to school politically polarized by a new absurd entirely artificial religious war about a woman’s dress. When will there be civil peace and true secularism that unites instead of exasperating?
Last June, he claimed that the abaya had “nothing to do with religion”, and that the school’s problem was not this garment, but “the lack of teachers, the insufficiency of ‘welcome “. It was thus in line with the French Council of Muslim Worship (CFCM), which said in a press release the same month that this long traditional dress covering the body was “not” a Muslim religious sign.
Gabriel Attal’s announcement is criticized in particular at LFI, where many denounce an “Islamophobic” decision. Setting the tone of the exasperation of the Insoumis, the leader of the LFI deputies Mathilde Panot had mocked on X (ex-Twitter) “the obsession” of the Minister of Education Gabriel Attal: “Muslims. Specifically, Muslims.”
“How far will the garment police go?” Also indignant was LFI MP Clémentine Autain, deeming this decision “unconstitutional, contrary to the founding principles of secularism” and “symptomatic of the obsessive rejection of Muslims”.
Among environmentalists, Gabriel Attal’s decision is seen as “a rancid controversy to divert attention from Macron’s policy of dismantling public schools”, underlines Cyrielle Chatelain, leader of the group in the Assembly, believing that ” the priority” is not “to be in a logic of exclusion and stigmatization”.
MP Sandrine Rousseau, known for her feminist positions, compares this announcement to a new “social control over the bodies of women and young girls”, like the “crop top ban” announced in September 2022.
But within the PS or the PCF, the measure is more favorably received, in particular in the name of the principle of secularism. Barely out of the Medina controversy, and while relations were strained in the summer on the question of a common list for Europeans, the partners of the left union once again expressed their disagreements, this time on the secularism.
The PS deputy Jérôme Guedj, actively pro-Nupes, recalls, in the name of the principle of secularism, that “our compass is the prohibition of conspicuous signs at school. As soon as the abaya or the qamis [long male garment, editor’s note] are worn in an ostentatious dimension, then they must be prohibited as the 2004 law allows, without major difficulties “. For him, “it is therefore not a clothing police, but a school proselytizing police”. This does not prevent him from shooting an arrow at Gabriel Attal, invited to “put the same energy to ensure the essential: to guarantee a teacher in front of each class”.
The PS mayor of Montpellier, Michaël Delafosse, hostile to Nupes, also welcomed the government’s decision, because “the principle of secularism must be affirmed with clarity”.
But Socialist MP Fatiha Keloua Hachi quipped about “THE priority of this back-to-school”, noting that “there is no shortage of teachers, AESH [accompanying students with disabilities], school doctors, classes do not are not overcrowded, social diversity is a reality everywhere…”
Renowned for his sometimes contrarian positions within Nupes, PCF boss Fabien Roussel clearly welcomed the ban. “Because the heads of establishments needed clear instructions even if it concerns 150 establishments out of the 60,000 that we have in our country,” he explained on Sud Radio.
