Undressing the French state’s abaya ban

French Islamophobia is writing a new chapter in its inglorious history. On 27 August, the newly appointed minister of education announced on live television the banning of abayas — traditional long dresses worn by Muslim women and girls — from public schools. Gabriel Attal, an ambitious and trusted right-hand man of President Macron, justified the ban by describing abayas as “attacks on secularism”. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

Dressing and governing Women cloaked in masculine roles Dominance, attire, and governance The example of Turkey The example of India Colonial Algeria-inspired policy Islam’s announced prevalence Action points Also read

This practice, a natural expression of the girls’ Muslimness and attachment to their heritage, has been routinely met with moral panic. Certainly, a series of polls over the past two years indicated strong and overwhelming opposition to traditional garments being worn in public schools. [4]

Moreover, a school teacher even labelled the dress as a “disturbing and threatening phenomenon”, while a secretary of state accused “networks of radical Islam” of “weakening the Republic”. President Macron went as far as to justify the ban by explaining that “terrorist attacks and Samuel Paty’s murder” could not be ignored, thus associating Muslim children with violence. [5] [6] [7]

The police — an Islamophobic institution and culprit of the recent murder of young Muslim, Nahel Merzouk — have been deployed in front of some French schools to enforce the ban. Muslim children, unjustly criminalised by the state, are undergoing severe psychological restraint and trauma.

Dressing and governing

For any system of governance, dress is crucial as it participates in defining the identity of the ruled masses. The wearing of specific dresses cements a sense of belonging and recognition.

As Fanon writes in A Dying Colonialism,

“The way people clothe themselves, together with the traditions of dress and finery that custom implies, constitutes the most distinctive form of a society’s uniqueness, that is to say the one that is the most immediately perceptible.”

French fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent once stated that “dressing was a way of life”. His famous quote outlined that aesthetics did not result from mere neutral tastes. He recognised that clothing carried — consciously or not — an ethical meaning with a political reach.

Women cloaked in masculine roles

Fashion design has shaped culture, creating garments influenced by modern ideas.

For example, the gender revolution gained traction with the creation of clothing lines adapting traditionally male garments to the female body (pants, blazers, etc.). The implication of this new trend was simple: as women were now wearing masculine clothes, they could cloak themselves with masculine roles and attributes.

Policymakers understand the relevance of promoting a politically tailored dress code. Attires mirror their identity, legitimising it as the norm by which to adhere. The way bodies are covered reinforces the way of life governments and rulers desire to promote.

Dominance, attire, and governance

In parallel, a politically tailored dress code reinforces the marginalisation of the ways they oppose.

When a dominant ruling majority and a dominated minority adhere to opposite syntheses of life — to an opposite dīn — the latter’s dress can become the target of the former’s repression. The bodies of the ruled minority form a political ground where conflict arises. A tyrannical majority will impose an assimilation process of their attire to assert political dominance and domesticate the targeted minority.

Examples proving the above connection between governance and dress norms are countless.

The example of Turkey

As part of his Westernisation policies and opposition to Islam, Mustafa Kemal prohibited traditional clothes. In 1925, a law forbade turbans and fezzes, replacing them with hats inspired by Western fashion.

This caused revolts led by Imams who understood the legislation’s danger. Removing from the public space Islamically inspired norms and replacing them with typically Western garments would inevitably loosen common believers’ attachment to Islam.

Their revolt was met with severe repression, proportional to the secularists’ will to de-Islamise the country.

Several Muslim opponents were sentenced to death.

The example of India

Comparably, in modern-day India, Hindu nationalists wear saffron attire as a sign of allegiance to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its political purpose: Hindu supremacy.

Some Hindu groups have forced Muslim boys to wear saffron shawls, a humiliating request that reassures and reasserts their unjustified sense of superiority. [8]

Schools have even sacked some Muslim teachers for wearing abayas and ordered others to remove their hijab. [9] [10]

Colonial Algeria-inspired policy

Since the colonial era, republican, modern, and secular France has identified Islamic dress code as nothing less than suspicious conduct.

In the same book mentioned earlier, Fanon makes this point very clearly:

“The officials of the French administration in Algeria, committed to destroying the people’s originality, and under instructions to bring about the disintegration, at whatever cost, of forms of existence likely to evoke a national reality directly or indirectly, were to concentrate their efforts on the wearing of the veil, which was looked upon at this juncture as a symbol of the status of the Algerian woman.”

During the War of Independence, the French forced some Muslim women to remove their hijab or haik — a white Algerian dress covering both body and face. Using Fanon’s reasoning as a model, we can conclude that the colonial policy’s goal was to disintegrate a most immediately perceptible and distinct form of Muslimness, an identity organically opposed to the Republic’s illegitimate rule in Algeria.

The Republic’s policy was animated by the principle we mentioned earlier: forcing assimilation to domesticate a Muslim population eager to achieve independence. In other words, discouraging an Islamic garment as it evoked the reality and potential political growth of a dissenting identity.

To the present day, this tenet fuels the motion of republican anti-Muslim politics.

Niqab has been banned from public spaces since 2010.
The 2004 law banning religious signs from public schools prevents the wearing of hijab.

The remit now includes abayas and qamīs.

Discussions have started regarding a potential ban on religious symbols in universities, and some suggest the idea of a mandatory uniform for students living in Muslim-majority neighbourhoods.

Islam’s announced prevalence

Unsurprisingly, while prohibiting some attire on its soil, France vehemently opposes the state’s enforcement of Islamic dress norms in Afghanistan.

This opposition needs to be understood correctly: France does not condemn the promotion and prohibition of specific attire as a principle of governance.

As proven earlier, any system of governance regulates the masses’ dress code, promoting what it believes to be ethical and forbidding what it deems unethical. Therefore, when France opposes the promotion of Sharia-compliant attire and the ban on non-Sharia-compliant garments by the Taliban, it expresses its opposition to Islamic dress norms in and of themselves.

History bears witness to the frailty of these tactics. If they can momentarily remove exterior signs of Muslimness from public sight, they reinforce the persecuted Muslims’ sense of belonging to their dīn in the long run. Their oppression is, in the end, meaningless.

Allah says in the Qur’ān,

“They wish to extinguish Allah’s light with their mouths, but Allah will certainly perfect His light, even to the dismay of the disbelievers.

“He is the One Who has sent His Messenger with true guidance and the religion of truth, making it prevail over all others, even to the dismay of the polytheists.” [11]

Action points

Engage in further reading and recognise the French state's hypocrisy in regards to freedoms and so-called liberty.
Have faith in Allah and know that He is All-Aware of the attempts made by enemies of Islam to harm Muslims.
Promote tolerance and understanding among different cultural and religious groups to combat discrimination.