.EVERY FEW years the French acquire worked up about an item of theological clothing that they deem inappropriate in the classroom. This time a controversy has burst out at la rentru00e9e, the start of the new school year, over an authorities selection to ban from state schools the abaya, a full-length bathrobe put on through some Muslim women for virtue. To individuals in nations along with a tradition of liberal multiculturalism, the restriction resembles an undesirable infringement of the right to religious expression. To defenders of a strict variation of French secularism, it is a solution essential to guard the state coming from theological disturbance. Why is actually France thus troubled concerning Muslim dress in its own schools?