Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin and Secretary of State for Citizenship Sonia Backès asked the prefects of “to support the educational community in an indispensable reaction of great firmness to” attacks on secularism at school which “have multiplied since the start of the school year”.
In a telegram to the prefects to which Agence France-presse (AFP) had access, Mr. Darmanin and Mrs. Backès argue that the proliferation of “reports of attacks on secularism since the start of the school year, [est] clearly the result of an Islamist offensive aimed at the youngest, in particular through the encouragement to wear traditional clothing”.
On Sunday, the Minister of National Education, Pap Ndiaye, considered that faced with this phenomenon, the 2004 law should “be applied strictly and firmly”. This law prohibits conspicuous religious clothing or signs within school premises.
On Thursday, the Ministry of National Education published the figures for attacks on secularism in schools, colleges and high schools for September, showing an increase in reports for wearing outfits such as abayas and qamis (long traditional clothes worn respectively by women and by men).
“Religious clothing by destination”
A total of 313 reports were recorded last month and 904 in the second quarter of 2022. This is an increase compared to the average of 627 incidents recorded in the first quarter of 2022. Incidents for “wearing of signs and outfits” religions represent more than half of the September reports (54%), compared to 41% in the second quarter of 2022 and 22% in the first quarter.
In this telegram to the prefects, Mr. Darmanin specified in his own hand that Mrs. Backès and himself were “with the Minister of National Education very attentive to this subject”. Prefects are asked to bring “all the necessary assistance to the personnel of the educational community who would be the subject of threats, even attacks in connection with the strict application of the principle of secularism”. And in the event that they are seized of “case of wearing traditional clothes in schools” to assist in the application of the 2004 law.
The two ministers recall that wearing clothes such as “abayas or qamis are indeed religious clothing by destination when the purpose attached to their wearing is beyond doubt and it constitutes an attempt to circumvent them” of the 2004 law. Therefore, add the ministers, “Heads of establishments are entitled to take sanctions against students who are the source of such behavior and to deny them access to their establishment”.