Immigration & refugees

Italy Bans Burqas in Schools, Caps Foreign-Language Students

Does this policy defend integration or is it election-season theater targeting kids born in Italy?

SEP 25·Updated SEP 27

Italy Bans Burqas in Schools, Caps Foreign-Language Students

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Above: Muslim women offering the Eid al-Fitr prayer in Centocelle, Rome, on March 20. Image credit: Simona Granati/Corbis/Getty Images

The Spin

Government-critical narrative

Cracking down on garments almost nobody in Italian classrooms actually wears is campaign theater, timed for votes rather than addressing any real problem. Segregated schools mirror segregated neighborhoods, and shipping kids across town fixes nothing. Most of these so-called foreigners were born in Italy, and treating them as symbols instead of students is shameful.

Il Fatto Quotidiano InsideOver (Italy)

Pro-government narrative

Face-covering veils belong to a fundamentalist reading of Islam that strips girls of choice, and a school built on integration has every reason to say no. France, Austria, Belgium and Norway already drew this line, and European courts backed them, so Italy is hardly an outlier. Limiting classes to 30% of pupils who can't yet speak Italian also protects learning for everyone and breaks up ghettoized classrooms.

Il Tempo (Italy)il Giornale