published in: Economic Policy, 2023, 38 (113), 63-98
Immigration from Muslim countries is a source of tensions in many Western countries. Several countries have adopted regulations restricting religious expression and emphasizing the neutrality of the public sphere. We explore the effect of the most emblematic of these regulations: the prohibition of Islamic veils in French schools. In September 1994, a circular from the French Ministry of Education asked teachers and principals to ban Islamic veils in public schools. In March 2004, the parliament took one-step further and enshrined prohibition in law. This paper provides evidence that the 1994 circular contributed to improving the educational outcomes of female students with a Muslim background and to reducing educational inequalities between Muslim and non-Muslim students. We also provide evidence suggesting that the 2004 law has not generated any further improvements.
We use cookies to provide you with an optimal website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site as well as cookies that are only used for anonymous statistical purposes, for comfort settings or to display personalized content. You can decide for yourself which categories you want to allow. Please note that based on your settings, you may not be able to use all of the site's functions.
Cookie settings
These necessary cookies are required to activate the core functionality of the website. An opt-out from these technologies is not available.
In order to further improve our offer and our website, we collect anonymous data for statistics and analyses. With the help of these cookies we can, for example, determine the number of visitors and the effect of certain pages on our website and optimize our content.