.EVERY FEW years the French get worked up concerning an item of religious garments that they consider unacceptable in the class. This time around a dispute has actually broken out at la rentru00e9e, the begin of the new academic year, over an authorities decision to outlaw from state institutions the abaya, an uncut robe worn by some Muslim women for virtue. To people in countries with a practice of liberal multiculturalism, the restriction appears like an inappropriate breach of the right to spiritual look.
To protectors of a rigorous model of French secularism, it is a step necessary to safeguard the republic from theological obstruction. Why is actually France thus troubled about Muslim wear its own institutions?