.EVERY FEW years the French acquire worked up concerning an item of theological garments that they deem inappropriate in the class. This time around a debate has broken out at la rentru00e9e, the begin of the brand-new school year, over a government choice to disallow from condition universities the abaya, a whole robe put on by some Muslim females for virtue. To people in countries with a custom of liberal multiculturalism, the ban appears like an unwanted violation of the right to religious expression. To protectors of a stringent model of French secularism, it is a procedure required to defend the commonwealth from religious disturbance. Why is actually France thus troubled about Muslim dress in its own institutions?