On September 5, 2023, Aisha* woke up and put on a floaty, sleeveless dress for her second day back to school after the summer holidays. It was a week since a memorandum had been sent out by the French minister of education and youth, Gabriel Attal, banning pupils from wearing the abaya (a long, loose-fitting dress) or qamis (a long, loose-fitting men's shirt) in state schools.
A few hours after Aisha arrived at her high school in Lyon, she was called to the chief educational advisor's office in the middle of class. Suspecting something was wrong – at 15 years old, she already has a keen sense for such things – she immediately began recording on her phone.
“I suppose you're wondering why I've called you here,” he said.
“I've got no idea.”
“Use your imagination.”
Aisha asked him to spell it out for her. “You can tell me – it's you who called me here,” she replied. Through the recording, I hear her unwavering voice – steadfast, though polite.
After a couple of minutes of back and forth, the chief educational advisor got to the point.
“Don't treat me like an imbecile. We're obliged to ban you from entering the high school in that outfit. So you have two options. You either adapt your outfit to what I tell you to–”
“What type of outfit is this?”
“–and you place yourself in conformity with other students by wearing something without a religious connotation. Or you can go home.”
“It's not an abaya, it's got no sleeves.”
“It's just so
