Italy plans to ban burqas, niqabs in schools, says PM Meloni

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has announced that the government is preparing a bill that would ban burqas and niqabs in schools and introduce a limit on the number of foreign pupils in each class. 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,” she 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.”

Italian PM Meloni:

The proposed measure will introduce an obligation for the parents of foreign students with serious school-integration problems to learn Italian, and it will introduce a ban on the burqa and niqab at school.

In Italy, nobody, in the name of a real or supposed… pic.twitter.com/zYm54QCYBD

— Clash Report (@clashreport) September 20, 2026

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.
Italy heads to the polls next year, with competition intensifying to the right of Meloni’s party following the entry of retired general Roberto Vannacci, who has called for even tougher measures. Migration is a highly political and divisive issue in Italy. Italy, owing to its central Mediterranean location, is among he European countries most exposed to migrant arrivals, with their integration remaining contentious in Italian society, Reuters news agency reported.