Italy Caps Foreign Pupils in Class, and a Bilingual Valley Reads the Decree

The Italian government adopted a decree law on Thursday banning burqas and niqabs in schools and capping the number of pupils with a poor command of Italian in each class, according to the BBC, Deutsche Welle, the New York Times, the Guardian and The Local Italy. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni described the measures, in the BBC's account, as "common-sense tools that do not divide but really help to integrate". The Guardian reported that critics accused the government of ramping up divisive rhetoric to court far-right voters before next year's general election, with one opponent quoted saying she was "running scared".

The wire does not give the cap as a number, and the outlets differ in emphasis rather than in substance. The New York Times framed the move as an attempt to appease anti-immigrant sentiment while the government presents it as integration policy. Deutsche Welle described it as new school rules affecting students who do not speak fluent Italian. The Local Italy reported the cabinet adopted the measure as a decree law, a route that takes effect quickly and returns to Parliament for conversion afterwards.

For Valle d'Aosta the decree touches a question the region has answered differently for decades. The valley is bilingual in Italian and French, and its autonomy statute gives it control over its own schools and over the teaching of French, alongside a German-speaking Walser minority in a handful of high villages. A state rule that sorts children by their command of Italian arrives in a school system built precisely so that language is not the only thing a child can be.