Excerpt:
The case of a 15-year-old Muslim girl who was banned from class twice for wearing a long black skirt seen as too openly religious for secular France has sparked an outcry.
The girl was stopped from going to class earlier this month by the head teacher who reportedly felt the long skirt -- popular among some Muslim women who cover their whole body -- "conspicuously" showed religious affiliation, which is banned in schools by France's strict secularity laws.
"The girl was not excluded, she was asked to come back with a neutral outfit and it seems her father did not want the student to come back to school," local education official Patrice Dutot told AFP on Tuesday.