French students will not get past the door if they show up for school wearing long robes, President Emmanuel Macron has insisted – saying authorities will be “intractable” in enforcing a new rule when classes resume next week.
French education minister Gabriel Attal announced at a news conference four days ago that robes worn mainly by Muslims, known as abayas for girls and women and khamis for boys and men, would be banned with the start of the new school year on Monday.
Mr Macron addressed the dress code for the first time publicly after visiting a professional school in the Vaucluse region of southern France.
“We know there will be cases” of pupils testing the rule, the president said, including ones trying to “defy the republican system”.
Mr Macron said they will not be able to slip into class, saying “we will be intractable on the subject”.
The education minister described girls and boys wearing the robes in school as “an infringement on secularism”, a foundational principle for France.
He accused some youngsters of using the traditional attire to try to destabilise schools.
The new rule has received inevitable criticism.
Social media platforms have buzzed with critics saying the loose, body-covering garments do not constitute an ostentatious display of religion and should not be banned from classrooms.
The framework for the ban is a 2004 law aimed at preserving secularism in French public schools.
The law prohibited Muslim headscarves but also applied to large Christian crosses, Jewish kippas and the large turbans worn by Sikhs.
It passed after months of furore and marathon parliamentary debates.
Muslims claimed it stigmatised them.
The law does not apply to university students.
Addressing how the new measure will be enforced, Mr Macron said “specific personnel” will be sent to “sensitive” schools to help teachers and to talk with pupils and families, if needed.
Mr Attal said earlier that 14,000 educational personnel in leadership positions would be trained by the end of this year to deal with enforcement and other issues in upholding secularism, and 300,000 personnel would be trained by 2025.
