Italy to ban niqabs and burqas in schools, limit foreign students per class

Italy is preparing to ban face coverings in schools and to cap the number of foreign students per class. 

Prime Minister Giorgia ​Meloni said this on Sunday, September 20, at a youth event organised by her party. 

Meloni said a package of measures will soon go before the Italian cabinet, including a ban on burqas and niqabs in schools, a requirement for parents of pupils facing “serious difficulties integrating” into the national school system to learn Italian, and a limit on places for foreign pupils. 

“It is unacceptable that in an Italian classroom the children who end up feeling pushed into a corner are Italian children because they have become the minority. That cannot be allowed,” Meloni said during a rally organised by Gioventù Nazionale, the youth wing of her Brothers of Italy party. 

“Calling all this integration is yet another lie, a convenient lie for those who live off ideology, for those who preach to us from their living rooms and then send their own children to schools where this problem does not exist.” 

Several European countries, including France and Belgium, already ban face coverings in public places. Austria has also introduced restrictions in schools. Elsewhere, including Spain and Poland, freedom of conscience and religion is protected by the constitution.