.EVERY FEW years the French get worked up regarding an item of spiritual clothes that they view as inappropriate in the class. This time a debate has actually broken out at la rentru00e9e, the start of the brand new academic year, over a government decision to outlaw from state institutions the abaya, a full-length robe used through some Muslim girls for virtue. To folks in nations with a custom of liberal multiculturalism, the restriction seems like an inappropriate violation of the right to spiritual expression.
To guardians of a strict model of French secularism, it is actually a solution required to protect the republic coming from religious disturbance. Why is actually France thus anxious regarding Muslim dress in its own institutions?