Crop tops or 'republican' dress? France debates school wear

French women enjoy a reputation for ir instinctive knack for spot-on chic attire. But w y may well be confused.Ministers, already working overtime to tamp down coronavirus spread and ramp up ecomy, have gotten side-tracked in a debate about wher crop tops or or skimpy clothing on adolescent girls in classrooms is a grave affront to French Republic.

Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer has said that girls should go to school dressed in “a republican manner.” That apparently means prim and modest, but one is quite sure.Meanwhile, fueling feeling that women in France just can’t win, some have come under fire recently for covering up too much — by wearing a Muslim headscarf.

Blanquer was responding to an initiative started on social media, dubbed Monday, Sept. 14 Movement, encouraging students to come to school in ir best “provocative” or “indecent” clos. idea was to claim freedom from what is seen as an implicit dress code in public schools, which have written rules about attire.

In a land where portraits and statues of bare-breasted symbol of France, Marianne, are omnipresent, Blanquer's remark drew mockery on social media. Some posts portrayed women of French Revolution in ir traditional “Phrygian” bonnets, and dresses with deep decolletés exposing cleav.

word “republicain," referring to French Republic, has in recent years been increasingly thrown about by government officials to describe values of democratic system on which France has been built for more than 200 years. But many, even among his government colleagues, think Blanquer went too far.

“In France, everyone is free to dress as y like,” minister in charge of equality between women and men, Elisabeth More, said Tuesday in daily Parisien. “Women took centuries to be able to free mselves of dress codes. This freedom (that has been won) has price.”

For some, education minister’s remark in response to Sept. 14 movement is a mir dispute, but for ors serious issue of women’s rights is at stake. Both More and industry minister, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, regretted that girls alone were focus of debate.

A teacher at a high school in Alfortville, souast of Paris, Francoise Cahen, tweeted: “ parents of young Marianne are asked to quickly pick up ir child, sent away from school for her n-republican dress.” Attached was a picture of bust of Marianne, France's national symbol, her breasts bared.In ar tweet, Cahen ted that what is really “indecent” at school is needy students who can’t afford school supplies or gym shoes.

Amid derision and disagreements, education minister might take comfort in a poll on skin-revealing clos in school released Friday by Ifop polling firm. poll of 2,027 adult men and women of all s showed a broad opposition to such dress, with 73% of women opposed and 58% of men. poll had a margin of error of around 3%.

Two French out of three (66%) opposed students going to school braless, including 41% of younger people. Plunging necklines also were seen as inappropriate classroom dress, while popular crop tops baring midriffs got a 55% from older people, while 59% of under-25s approved.

Pollsters linked results t to republican dress but to an overall sense that it's “still up to girls to handle masculine desire” despite ir generation's rejection of such tions. debate over school dress was also framed by resurgence of long-standing polemic over Muslim headscarves, seen as an affront to France’s secular foundations. head coverings have been banned in French schools since 2004.

A Muslim university student who wears a headscarf was hounded off Twitter after demonstrating on French TV how fellow students can cook low-budget meals. And separately, vice-president of student union UNEF, Maryam Pougetoux, triggered an incident when she appeared before a parliamentary commission on youth and coronavirus in her headscarf.

Several scandalized lawmakers walked out, starting with Anne-Christine Lang, of President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party. She tweeted that as a “feminist attached to republican values ... and women’s rights,” she saw veil as a “mark of submission” and had choice but to leave.UNEF replied that “to be feminist is as much to back Monday, Sept. 14, movement as to back women who choose to wear" headscarves.

(Im Credit: AP)