.EVERY FEW years the French acquire worked up about an item of spiritual garments that they regard as unsuitable in the class. This moment a controversy has burst out at la rentru00e9e, the beginning of the brand new school year, over a federal government choice to disallow coming from state schools the abaya, a whole robe put on by some Muslim women for discreetness. To folks in nations along with a practice of liberal multiculturalism, the restriction seems like an unacceptable infraction of the right to religious expression.
To protectors of a rigorous model of French secularism, it is actually a solution necessary to safeguard the state from spiritual disturbance. Why is France so concerned about Muslim dress in its own institutions?