The Conseil d’Etat confirmed this Friday, September 27, the ban on wearing the abaya in schools, rejecting on the merits the requests of associations already dismissed in summary proceedings a year ago. The associations La Voix lycéenne, Le Poing levé and Action Droits des Musulmans (ADM), as well as the union SUD éducation, ‘are not justified in requesting the annulment of the memorandum’ of August 31, 2023, by which the Minister of Education had banned the wearing of abaya- or qami-type outfits in schools, according to his court ruling (new window) issued this Friday.
In fact ‘in view of the behavior of pupils wearing these outfits, used in a logic of religious affirmation’, the wearing of such outfits ‘could be considered an ostensible manifestation of a religious affiliation, prohibited by the law of March 15, 2004’, explains the Conseil d’Etat in a press release. It therefore rules on the merits that ‘the memo from the Minister of National Education complies with the law’.
The highest administrative court follows the logic of two decisions handed down in September 2023, when it validated in summary proceedings the ban on this long, covering dress at school. ‘The wearing of these outfits is part of a logic of religious affirmation, the dialogue between the establishments and the pupils concerned having revealed that it is accompanied by a stereotyped discourse, inspired by arguments disseminated on social networks and elaborated to circumvent the prohibition enshrined in the law’, adds the Conseil d’Etat.