New announcement. NB I believe it’s “hijab” in English.
Spot on too 
No it isn’t. A hijab is a headsquare and an abaya is a long flowing kaftan-type garment.
Hijabs were already forbidden.
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So, a sort of dress.
Corrected the title, anyway.
Of course, France will do what it wants, but it still seems a bit intolerant. It’s extending the idea of laïcité from ensuring State organisations are free of overt religious influence to controlling what individuals may do, which doesn’t seem the same thing at all.
That is the tightrope really - the crux is whether the abaya is just any old long shapeless dress (which defenders of it maintain) or whether it’s an explicit statement of religious identity. If it’s the former then there’s no problem, if the latter then it stays at home
It isn’t just a bit of clothing it is political (cfhijabs and chadors in Egypt, Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan).
At the same time it enrages me women and girls should be told what to wear or what not to wear by anyone.
At my place of work last year there were a few abayas around but many more brightly coloured polyester pyjama type outfits which are again worn only by Muslim girls but don’t have the overtly religious vibe of the abaya.
I can see uniform being imposed to get around this.
Not quite, it is that, but also nobody’s religion is supposed to be identifiable by their clothes or accessories.
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I am a little confused why a Hijab causes issues whereas a Nun’s habit does not - both cover up the same amount of flesh and both are linked to religion.
@Mat_Davies Only an issue in a place like a school: walking down the street you can wear a hijab, or an abaya, or whatever: working in a school as staff or as a pupil you can’t. If I had a colleague who was a nun she would not be allowed to teach in her nun’s outfit but would have to be in civvies.
It’s not the habit which is equivalent to the hijab by the way it’s the wimple.
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Perhaps I will be kicked out of the Catholic religion for not paying sufficient attention!
Thank you for these thoughts. I was aware when I posted the link that the Anglo-Saxon idea of tolerance and the French laïcité would be at odds, and wanted to avoid offending sensibilities.
I found a link to a book on the subject (this one: On the State and Religions in France – Cogito) which seems to support the analysis - which I think you lean towards, from your last comment - that laïcité has been extended to include control of personal behaviour.
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Well school is an emanation of the state and as the state is laïc so is the school system. We don’t have RE, we don’t do assembly, we don’t celebrate holidays (which may have been religious in origin) as religious holidays. So no baby Jesus etc at Yuletide. If you want religion go private as many, including many Muslims, do.
You can’t ostentatiously wear religious accoutrements because their place is at home not at school.
If you had a tattoo of the crucifixion on your arm, you would have to wear a long enough sleeved shirt for it to be hidden. If you had eg a bunch of flowers instead nobody would care.
My hijab-wearing pupils put on their hijabs as soon as they are on the pavement outside the school’s front door, as is their right. If they came in wearing it I would tell them to take it off.
As for controlling what individuals may do ie personal behaviour I think that’s something schools do everywhere.
(See also: do up your top button! Roll that skirt back down! Those aren’t your games socks! Where are your gloves! Put that hat on properly! That’s not how your tie should be tied!)
In the UK pupils are regularly excluded from school for dyeing their hair ‘weird’ colours or not wearing regulation school uniform.
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It’s a touch over focused on muslims at times….I was in a supermarket a while back ( possibly in Carpentras, can’t remember) and crossed paths with a family (mother and three girls) who from their clothes and accessories I could immediately identify as fairly orthodox jews. There is no way anyone could write a law that identified and prohibited A line skirts below the knee, thick tights, wrist lengths sleeves, carefully styled wigs, and flat’ish shoes.
Is this not the same?
Were you in a school? Because all this legislation applies only there and administrative places like préfectures etc for the people who work there. I suppose that it’s only if it is identifiably, overtly (ostentatoire) religious kit that you run into the law. I expect there are a lot more Muslims in France than Orthdox Jews and also I don’t think Orthodox Jews are likely to have as big a political agenda.
Frum and frumpy isn’t enough
That said, if your family are Hassidim and your son went off to school dressed in small boy Hassidic kit (small girls from Hassidic families aren’t as identifiable in my experience from Belgium) then you’d be sent home to change.
What the Plymouth Brethren girls wore at school in the UK would not be allowed nor would they be allowed not to watch videos or to avoid certain topics etc. French parents are not allowed to remove their children from any lessons eg sex ed. as they seem to be in the UK.
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I think it’s good. The state is standing up to protect girls from choices being made for them at least during the hours they are in the care of the state.
I’ve had female (Muslim) friends I worked with tell me they feel protected, for example, by keeping their hair covered, or that Muslim schoolgirls may actively have made their own choice to wear abaya and find it protective or an expression of who they are proud to say they are. But for me, to avoid the many situations where the.choice was not the schoolgirl’s, I think the choice should be left till later.
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A timely guide on terminology
How things stand in the EU, as at 2011
Yes and here is another bit of France-specific info, it’s from before this latest ruling, but the abaya is not allowed at school you can wear one elsewhere if you want to.
I should also point out schools have all sorts of rules about appropriate clothing regarding things like having your thong poking out of the back of your microshorts or wearing a wife beater, as well.
So if you want to go about draped in a big sheetlike bit of flowery fabric like the Mauretanian women in my local town go ahead.
Edited because wife beater was written wife eater.
No, but during school period so the kids will have come from school (no doubt having had the piss taken out of them for their demure attire…). Probably goes under the radar as you can’t legislate for poor fashion choices.
(Isn’t is a wife beater, not eater 
)
I spend the winters pottering round the village in my cosy wool kechabia, and no-one seems to mind.
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Of course. That’s in your village and not at work (in the public sector) so you’re free to wear what you like.
His attire is fine, the lightsabre would be a problem.
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What’s a wife beater? Apart from the obvious.