French schools send home girls wearing Muslim robes

According to a government minister, scores of girls were expelled from French schools for refusing to take off their abayas on the first day of the school year. The abaya is a Muslim woman's covering that extends from the shoulders to the feet.

Nearly 300 females turned there Monday morning wearing an abaya despite the Muslim robe being prohibited, Gabriel Attal told the BFM channel.

The majority consented to remove their robes, but 67 did not, according to him, and were sent home.

The government stated last month that it was outlawing the abaya in schools, claiming that it violated the laws requiring educational institutions to be secular, which have already seen Muslim headscarves outlawed on the basis that they are a sign of religious allegiance.

The political right applauded the action, but the hard left claimed it violated civil liberties.

According to Attal, a letter stating that "secularism is not a constraint, it is a liberty" was sent to the girls whose admittance was denied to their families.

The minister stated that there would be a "new dialogue" if they returned to school wearing the abaya. 

“We cannot act as if the terrorist attack, the murder of Samuel Paty, had not happened,” he said in an interview with YouTube channel HugoDecrypte.

He brought up the death of teacher Samuel Paty three years prior for displaying cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in a civics lesson.

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