While the Council of State validated the ban on the wearing of the abaya at school, an advisory commission mandated by the American Congress estimated that the government had “encroached on religious freedom” in the country.
An American commission on Friday criticized the government’s decision to ban the wearing of the abaya in French schools, calling it a measure of “intimidation” targeting Muslims in France.
“In a misguided effort to promote the French value of secularism, the government is encroaching on religious freedom,” writes Abraham Cooper, who chairs the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a government advisory body mandated by the U.S. Congress.
“France continues to use a specific interpretation of secularism to target and intimidate religious groups, especially Muslims,” he continued in a statement, judging “condemnable to restrict the peaceful practice of religious beliefs by individuals to promote laicity”.
New controversy
After the burqa, the burkini and the hijab, France has returned to this school year with controversies over Islam, this time around the abaya, a long covering dress, banned at school in the name of secularism . The ban was upheld by the highest French court.
“The international community must continue to speak out against laws that threaten the religious freedom of all in France, as well as in other countries in Europe,” added Nury Turkel of the Commission, which makes recommendations to the American government. but has a strictly advisory role.
The Minister of Education Gabriel Attal announced this ban shortly before the start of the school year in early September in France, causing a new controversy in a country extremely attached to a law more than a century old on the separation of religion and the State.
Source: BFM TV
