Paris: In a tense and polarizing episode, French police apprehended a man on Thursday for issuing death threats against a school principal who had barred his daughter from entering the school premises due to her wearing a traditional Muslim abaya robe. 

This incident comes in the wake of President Emmanuel Macron's government announcing a ban on the abaya in schools, citing violations of secularism in education.

The arrested individual now faces prosecution for "issuing threats designed to intimidate a person charged with an official mission," as stated by local prosecutor Dominique Puechmaille to AFP.

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The unfortunate situation unfolded when the man's daughter attempted to enter her high school on Thursday, only to be stopped and asked to remove her abaya. 

When she refused, school authorities denied her entry, prompting her father to call the school and engage with a security guard and an educational adviser. It is alleged that during these conversations, he issued death threats targeting the school principal.

Reacting to the incident, French Education Minister Gabriel Attal condemned the threats as "intolerable and unspeakable," emphasizing the need to protect school staff. As a result, the principal is now under police protection.

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Laurent Wauquiez, the president of the Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region, revealed that the school staff had also received death threats and threats of decapitation. He emphasized the importance of maintaining "firmness and determination" in the face of such threats.

The controversial abaya ban, enacted in the name of secularism, was quickly contested before France's State Council, the highest administrative court, by an association arguing that it could incite hatred against Muslims and lead to racial profiling. 

However, the court dismissed the complaint, asserting that wearing the abaya "follows the logic of religious affirmation" and that the decision was in accordance with French law, which prohibits visible signs of any religious affiliation in schools.

The court further asserted that the government ban did not cause "serious or obviously illegal harm to the respect for personal lives, freedom of religion, the right to education, the well-being of children, or the principle of non-discrimination."

Internationally, the United States government advisory panel, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, criticized France's abaya ban, characterizing it as an attempt to "intimidate" the country's Muslim minority. 

While the commission does not set policy itself, its chair, Abraham Cooper, described the ban as a "misguided effort to promote the French value of laicité," which refers to the country's official secularism.

Cooper went on to say, "France continues to wield a specific interpretation of secularism to target and intimidate religious groups, particularly Muslims. 

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."

The controversy surrounding the abaya ban has escalated on the first day of the school year, with French schools sending dozens of girls home for refusing to remove their abayas. 

According to Attal, nearly 300 schoolgirls defied the ban on that day. While most eventually agreed to change their attire, 67 remained steadfast in their refusal and were consequently sent home.

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France, with an estimated 10 percent of its 67 million inhabitants being Muslim, has a significant Muslim minority. A substantial portion of this population has roots in northern African nations like Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, which were once French colonies until the mid-20th century.

As tensions continue to simmer and international scrutiny intensifies, the debate over the abaya ban in France is far from over. The nation finds itself at a crossroads, balancing the principles of secularism with the protection of religious freedoms and individual rights.