WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, UCL AL #342 - Anti-racism, Ban on the abaya: New racist and sexist attack from the government (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 

Gabriel Attal, now Minister of National Education having completed all
his education in the private sector, sets the tone upon taking office,
with the ban on abayas in schools. The question being: what right does
he have to decide what young women should wear? ---- Gabriel Attal, now
Minister of National Education having completed all his education in the
private sector, sets the tone as soon as he takes office, with the ban
on abayas in schools. The question being: what right does he have to
decide what young women should wear?
As the feminist demonstration in Aurillac on August 26 reminded us,
women do not have the choice of being topless in this country. Sometimes
too covered, sometimes not enough: sometimes the CPE and principals
claim to control the depth of the neckline or the length of the shorts
of high school girls, sometimes they wear clothes that are too long, too
baggy which would symbolize their submission or an abnormal religious
affiliation . When will the length of dresses be measured at school
entrances?

But it is obviously also a racist and Islamophobic announcement: in
their eyes, a long dress is, or becomes, Islamic clothing depending on
the person wearing it. White high school girls will be able to continue
to wear long dresses when the same clothes sold in stores like H&M or
Zara worn by their Muslim classmates or those identified as such will be
banned.

The obsession of French society and its political field for the clothing
of black or Arab high school girls is not new, and it reminds us of the
controversies over the wearing of headscarves in high schools in 1989
leading to the 2004 law.

A secularism with variable geometry
The abaya is not a religious garment. Even if this were the case, the
ban on religious symbols is a deviation from secularism, supposed to
protect the right of everyone to live their beliefs - including in
public spaces. The pseudo-secularism advocated here is a double
standard: it is used to exclude and stigmatize high school girls from
the school system, but it is strangely absent when it comes to releasing
8 billion euros for private schools under contract in 2022. 96% Catholic.

The government's more than uninhibited racism is not just another
back-to-school controversy to prevent us from "talking about real
issues", such as the deterioration of public schools or the 3,000 vacant
teaching positions at the start of the school year. 2023. This is also
the political project of this government which continues to fuel racial
hatred.

We affirm our support for the Muslims of this country who are suffering
the intensification of racist attacks from the right and the extreme
right as well as the racist laws passed by the socialists. We must stand
up to Islamophobia wherever it comes from, even from the left or the far
left.

We do not forget and express all our solidarity with Muslim women who
are organizing and fighting to obtain the same rights in society,
whether in sport, with the Hijabeuses on the regulations of the French
Football Federation or at the municipal swimming pool with the Union of
Muslim Women of Grenoble in 2022, all in a resolutely anti-racist and
feminist fight

Libertarian Communist Union, September 4, 2023.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Interdiction-de-l-abaya-Nouvelle-attaque-raciste-et-sexiste-du-gouvernement
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