PARIS: French schools sent dozens of girls home for refusing to remove their abayas — an over-garment from the shoulders to the feet worn by Muslim women — on the first day of the school year, a government minister said on Tuesday.

Defying a ban on the Muslim dress, nearly 300 girls showed up on Monday morning wearing an abaya, Gabriel Attal told the BFM broadcaster.

Most agreed to change out of the dress, but 67 refused and were sent home, he said.

The government ann­oun­ced last month it was banning the abaya in schools, saying it broke the rules on secularism in education that have already seen Muslim headscarves banned on the grounds they constitute a display of religious affiliation.

The move gladdened the political right but the hard-left argued it represented an affront to civil liberties.

Attal said the girls refused entry were given a letter addressed to their families saying that “secularism is not a constraint, it is a liberty”. If they showed up at school again wearing the dress there would be a “new dialogue”, the minister said.

Late on Monday, Presi­dent Emmanuel Macron defended the controversial measure, saying there was a “minority” in France who “hijack a religion and challenge the republic and secularism”, he said in an interview with You Tube channel HugoDecrypte.

An association representing Muslims has filed a motion with the State Council, France’s highest court for complaints against state authorities, for an injunction against the ban on the abaya and the qamis, its equivalent dress for men.

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2023