.EVERY FEW years the French acquire developed regarding a product of religious garments that they regard as improper in the classroom. This moment a debate has broken out at la rentru00e9e, the begin of the brand-new academic year, over a government choice to outlaw from condition schools the abaya, a full-length robe put on by some Muslim women for virtue. To folks in countries with a heritage of liberal multiculturalism, the restriction looks like an undesirable infraction of the right to spiritual look.
To defenders of a rigorous variation of French secularism, it is a procedure needed to defend the state from religious interference. Why is actually France so concerned about Muslim dress in its institutions?