Over two decades after it banned the hijab in schools, the French government has announced that it will also be introducing and enforcing a ban on abayas – a loose-fitting dress most commonly worn by Muslim women and girls.

The French education minister, Gabriel Attal, said that abayas would no longer be allowed in schools when the new term starts next week because they violated the French principle of secularism (laïcité). He told French television earlier this week: “When you walk into a classroom, you shouldn’t be able to identify the pupils’ religion just by looking at them. Secularism means the freedom to emancipate oneself through school.”

Attal went on to describe the abaya as “a religious gesture, aimed at testing the resistance of the [French] republic toward the secular sanctuary that school must be”.

However, this ban on abayas is simply the latest restriction put in place that will disproportionately target Muslim women in France, effectively controlling their bodies in public spaces through their clothing.

This isn’t a recent development but one rooted in decades of history. For more than a century, until its independence in 1962, Algeria was colonially ruled by France. King Charles X was explicit about his goal to “reclaim Algeria for Christianity” and this formed the basis of colonial rule, with the French army taking over mosques and converting them into churches and cathedrals at gunpoint. People were denied French citizenship unless they denounced Islam, and France made life extremely difficult to anyone who hadn’t or refused to assimilate into ‘modern’ Western ways.

But during the 1950s, tensions began to rise among Algeria’s Muslim population against the French, coming to a head in 1954 with the Algerian War. During this war, the veil played a significant role for the French. A French propaganda poster was produced that showed two faces, one veiled and one unveiled. The image was accompanied with the slogan: “Are you not pretty? Then unveil yourself!” It was an attempt by the French to show that Muslim women had chosen ‘freedom’, which ironically did not mean freedom from colonial rule but instead freedom from the oppressive forces of Islam.

Alongside this poster, the French colonial authorities also staged mass ‘unveiling’ ceremonies, where Algerian women would have their veils removed to stand in solidarity with their “French sisters”. Many decades later, France is still attempting to unveil Muslim women through clothing bans.

These restrictions on the clothing of Muslim women in France are rooted in gendered Islamophobia and the positioning of the veil as a political symbol. There’s no greater and more impactful image of the Other than the image of a veiled Muslim woman. It’s an image that’s regularly used in Western countries, especially in Europe, to drive home the message that Muslims are inherently different and alien to white people in historically Christian nations. An image of a veiled Muslim woman is perceived to be in direct opposition to everything that the West supposedly stands for – from equality to freedom of expression.

But when you choose to wear the hijab or the abaya but the state blocks this choice, where is the equality or the freedom of expression? Where is the outcry from feminists? Some will argue that these are just items of clothing and not that big of a deal. But for Muslim women, modest clothing and veiling are important parts of our religion and how we may choose to express that faith. And when France (and many other European countries, including Switzerland, Belgium and Denmark) continues to ban clothing that is typically associated with Muslims, it has real consequences for women.

Not only do Muslims have to make a difficult choice to take off their hijabs or abayas to participate in many arenas of public life, but it also furthers the belief that Muslims are inherently different to other communities. And it reinforces a range of negative stereotypes – from the idea that Muslim women are all oppressed and submissive to the framing of Muslim men as inherently violent and criminal.

When we should be working towards more inclusive and caring societies for all, France’s latest ban will only further divide communities and risks setting a precedent for other European nations to follow suit in banning the clothing of Muslim women. And with very little outcry surrounding these bans, it’ll likely once again fall on Muslim women to carry on fighting back against these restrictions so we can simply go about living our lives.

Image: Getty