‘Talking about girls rather than with them’: Europe’s headscarf debate

Since September 2026, wearing the hijab, the Islamic headscarf covering women's head and neck, has been banned for girls under the age of 14 in Austria’s school system. The ban applies within school grounds, but not for lessons, school events or gatherings that take place beyond the school gates.

Is the situation similar across Europe? Firstly, there is no common rule: national legislation often distinguishes between the hijab, which covers the hair and neck, leaving the face uncovered, and the niqab or burqa, which partially or completely conceal both face and body.

Restrictions also depend on the location – schools, public administrations, the street, workplaces – and on how each country interprets principles such as religious freedom, secularism, state neutrality, security and gender equality.

The issues at stake

An initial attempt to ban the headscarf in schools in Austria, proposed in 2019 by a coalition government comprising conservatives and the far right – The Peoples' party (ÖVP) and the Freedom party (FPÖ), was rejected the following year by the Constitutional Court as “discriminatory” because it was exclusively directed against a specific religious group. The current conservative-led government has expressed confidence that this time the law will face no such constitutional difficulties.

In Der Standard, Michael Völker explains the key issues at the centre of the debate. Those defending the legislation do so in the name of children’s wellbeing and self-determination, as well as the “best possible development” of pupils. The headscarf, in this view, may convey the idea that girls are supposed to dress differently and cover more of their bodies or sexual characteristics. Thus, Völker continues, this is a defence of gender equality and a system of integration that aims to protect against family or social pressures.

“A ban alone does not create freedom,” writes Marlies Ettl, an Austrian feminist in favour of the ban, in the same newspaper. “But schools can offer girls a space for free development, beyond expectations of female modesty and family honour. Girls learn that ‘my body is nothing to be ashamed of; I am not responsible for how a boy looks at me.’”

For critics of the law, the ban violates freedom of religion precisely in cases where a girl wears the headscarf voluntarily. Furthermore, Völker adds, “if the state wishes to enforce religious neutrality in schools, the question arises: why is the Islamic headscarf specifically banned, whilst other religious symbols, such as the cross, or items of clothing such as the Jewish kippah or the Sikh turban, remain permitted in principle?”

“As a woman and teacher especially, it troubles me that, once again, people are talking about girls rather than with them,” writes teacher Sophie Amon in Der Standard. “They are conveniently turned into symbolic figures in a political debate. Yet these are not abstract projections; they are children with their own unique experiences, insecurities and hopes. Some wear the headscarf out of conviction, others out of habit, and still others under pressure. But no girl becomes more free by being controlled from the outside. Freedom does not come about through punishments and bans, but through education, trust and spaces where girls can express themselves safely.”

According to data from Statistics Austria, in 2021 around 746,000 people – 8.3% of the country’s population – identified as Muslim. According to the government, the new law affects around 12,000 girls and teenagers who wear the hijab.

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'No girl becomes more free by being controlled from the outside' - Sophie Amon

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In France, under the law on secularism, any “ostentatious” religious symbol has been banned in state primary and secondary schools since 2004. The law does not specifically mention Islam, and it also applies to kippahs, Christian crosses and Sikh turbans. However, the debate leading to the law’s adoption was heavily centred on the Islamic headscarf.

As Ana Somavilla from El Confidencial explains, there is no national ban in Spain. Schools are free to adopt their own regulations, once they respect fundamental rights and, in particular, religious freedom. Case law, however, is not uniform. In January 2026, a court in Logroño in La Rioja (northern Spain) ruled that preventing a pupil from attending lessons whilst wearing a hijab violated her religious freedom. In 2012, however, an administrative court in Madrid ruled in favour of a school that prevented a pupil from entering the classroom whilst wearing a headscarf, on the basis of the school’s internal regulations.

In 2026, at the national level, the issue is once again a hot topic. However, the first efforts in the national parliament date back to June 2010, when the People’s Party (PP, conservative) tabled a motion in the Senate calling on José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s Socialist government to ban the burqa and niqab – both in non-religious public spaces and at public events. On 20 July 2010, the first parliamentary vote on a national ban took place.

The proposal was rejected with 183 votes against and 162 in favour. In 2026, Vox (far right), the PP and Junts (the Catalan pro-independence party) have supported, in different ways, proposals aimed at banning the burqa and the niqab in public spaces. For now, the Spanish parliament has rejected these initiatives, and Spain remains a country without a national ban.

In Italy, there is no national ban on the hijab, and female students are free to wear it from primary school through to university. Teachers and school staff may also wear it. According to Il Sole 24 Ore’s Silvia Martelli, this reflects an Italian vision of secularism that tends to guarantee religious pluralism rather than exclude religious symbols from the public sphere. From 1 October 2026, burqas and niqabs are banned in schools, universities, shops, offices and other public spaces, with fines ranging from 200 to 1000 euro. The legislation is presented as a measure against “cultural separatism” and religious radicalisation.

Belgium also has no single national law on the headscarf in schools, as György Folk from HVG explains. Authority over the education system lies with Belgium’s three linguistic communities, and the rules can vary from one school network to another. In Flanders, since 2013, state schools have prohibited pupils and staff from wearing any visible religious, philosophical or ideological symbols during school activities. Thus, the measure covers the hijab, but also crosses, kippahs and other symbols.

In 2020, the Belgian Constitutional Court recognised that a state school may opt for a model of complete neutrality and ban visible religious symbols, but this does not amount to a national obligation. Beginning in the 2026–27 school year, staff in certain school networks in French-speaking Belgium are prohibited from wearing visible religious symbols, whilst the rules for pupils will remain decentralised.

In 2016, Bulgaria adopted one of the strictest sets of laws on the full-face veil. Mediapool’s Krasen Nikolov notes that it is forbidden to wear clothing in public that partially or completely covers the face. The law, nicknamed the “burqa law”, was passed in the wake of the terrorist attacks that took place in Western Europe in the early 2000s.

The hijab, however, is a different matter. A particularly illustrative case involves a 16-year-old schoolgirl from the predominantly Muslim village of Valkosel. In 2016, she was expelled after turning up at school wearing a headscarf. The school argued that Bulgarian state education is secular, and that the regulations did not permit religious head coverings. The family challenged the teenager’s expulsion but lost their case in the administrative court.

Wearing a headscarf for religious reasons is not universally banned in Czech schools. Indeed, as Petr Jedlička from Deník Referendum explains, in the wake of the controversies that arose in the aftermath of the 2015–2016 refugee crisis, there is even a 2019 Supreme Court ruling concerning the case of a Somali medical student. According to this ruling, no Czech school is permitted to ban the headscarf, not even in its own regulations, unless the garment covers the face, or there is some objective justification on the grounds of safety, hygiene or health.

In the past, many education professionals have in the past voiced opposition to this “ban on banning the headscarf”, but in practice it is universally respected and there have been no significant cases relating to the headscarf since 2019. Around 20,000 Muslims live in the Czech Republic, but their children are usually from mixed marriages. There are only a few hundred children in the country with two Muslim parents, and most of these children do not wear the headscarf.

🤝 This article was produced as part of the collaborative project PULSE. Contributors included Ana Somavilla (El Confidencial, Spain), Jackie Berger (Obct, Italy), Silvia Martinelli (Il Sole 24 Ore, Italy), György Folk (EUrologus/HVG, Hungary), Krasen Nikolov, (Mediapool, Bulgaria), Theo Anders and Flora Mory (Der Standard, Austria), Justė Ancevičiūtė (Delphi, Lithuania) and Petr Jedlička (Denik Referendum, Czech Republic).

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