French police on Friday said it had detained a man who allegedly hurled death threats at the principal of a school who had sent his daughter home for wearing the traditional abaya as the national ban imposed by the government leads to friction and threatens to spiral out of control.
Police said that the man's daughter was stopped at the entrance of her high school and was told that she would have to take it off before being allowed to proceed further or go home.
The student refused and was hence sent home.
Later, her father called the school and allegedly issued threats.
Since the ban was imposed at the beginning of the French school year under a 2004 law, dozens of students have been either asked to take off the abaya or have been sent home upon their refusal to do so, leading to tensions.
A challenge against the ban in the French Supreme Court was promptly thrown out as well.
US rebuke
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom, which is tasked with making recommendations to the US government but does not set policy itself, on Friday said that the new French measures against the abaya targetted Muslim minority in the country and to "intimidate" them.
In a statement, the commission's chairperson Abraham Cooper, termed the ban a "misguided effort to promote the French value of laicite (France's version of secularism)".
"France continues to wield a specific interpretation of secularism to target and intimidate religious groups, particularly Muslims," the scathing statement added.
"While no government should use its authority to impose a specific religion on its population, it is equally condemnable to restrict the peaceful practice of individuals' religious beliefs to promote secularism."