.EVERY FEW years the French get worked up about a thing of spiritual clothes that they consider unsuitable in the classroom. This time around a debate has burst out at la rentru00e9e, the begin of the new school year, over a government choice to disallow coming from state universities the abaya, a full-length bathrobe worn through some Muslim ladies for quietness. To folks in nations with a practice of liberal multiculturalism, the restriction looks like an undesirable infraction of the right to religious expression. To guardians of a rigorous version of French secularism, it is a solution essential to shield the state from spiritual obstruction. Why is France therefore anxious about Muslim wear its schools?