The education minister in France, Gabriel Attal, has said the country will ban children from wearing abaya, a robe worn by Muslim women, in public schools.

Attal said this in an interview, saying when you walk into a classroom, you shouldn’t be able to identify the pupils’ religion just by looking at them.”

French public schools do not permit the wearing of large crosses, Jewish kippas or Islamic headscarves.

France has also made laws that removed any traditional Catholic influence from public education, enforcing a strict ban on religious signs in state schools since 19th-century.