.EVERY FEW years the French obtain worked up about a product of spiritual clothes that they regard as unacceptable in the classroom. This time a controversy has actually broken out at la rentru00e9e, the start of the new academic year, over a government decision to disallow coming from state institutions the abaya, an uncut robe put on by some Muslim females for virtue. To individuals in countries with a tradition of liberal multiculturalism, the restriction resembles an improper infraction of the right to spiritual look.
To defenders of a stringent variation of French secularism, it is a procedure essential to secure the state from theological disturbance. Why is actually France thus concerned concerning Muslim wear its own colleges?