French Education Minister Vows to Uphold Secularism in Schools, Combat Radicalization

Minister Attal and President Emmanuel Macron are on the same page on this issue. "The National Education system must not give up on preventing radicalization. And for students who are already radicalized, we must be able to remove them and find a different solution," the head of state explained during an informal exchange with his minister, who fully shares this point of view. Since his appointment, Attal is taking this issue of secularism in schools in connection with radical Islam very seriously, reports Le Parisien.

Before accepting his appointment, the thirty-year-old minister set two conditions for Macron: to review the baccalaureate schedule and to definitively clarify the issue of abayas. "Go ahead. I will support you completely," his boss agreed. A month after taking office, Attal is taking action. He issues a circular banning abayas and qamis in school establishments. A controversial measure that has sparked much debate. But the pill has been swallowed. "It’s a settled matter," the minister asserts.

"I assume it: in my school career as well as in my functions as a local elected official, I had never been confronted with this reality. I only measured its intensity to a small extent. It was the field trips, the exchanges with the stakeholders, that allowed me to fully grasp it," confesses the minister who has discussed the issue with school principals and experts, including researcher Hugo Micheron and the rector of the Paris mosque. "My subject is the school, I’m not here to deliver a general discourse on Islam," he nuances.

And to add: "I’m not taking any measures against Islam, I’m taking measures for secularism. If violations of the 2004 law had come from another religion, I would have had exactly the same reaction." Attal is awaiting the feedback from prefects and rectors whom he has asked to provide a precise count of identified radicalized students in order to, as he assumes, "remove" those considered potentially dangerous from establishments "by building ad hoc supervision."