Italy Caps Foreign Pupils, and a Border City Reads the Decree

The Italian government has adopted a decree law 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 and Deutsche Welle. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni described the measures as "common-sense tools that do not divide but really help to integrate", the BBC reported. The New York Times said critics accused her of trying to appease anti-immigrant sentiment.

The Guardian reported that the government has been accused of "running scared" and of ramping up divisive rhetoric to court far-right voters ahead of next year's general election. Politico Europe and The Local Italy carried the same reading of the decree's timing. The measures arrive as far-right and nationalist parties across Europe mark regional election breakthroughs, a trend The Local Italy surveyed on Saturday.

For Friuli-Venezia Giulia the decree arrives in a region where schooling in more than one language is not a novelty but the settled arrangement. The region is one of Italy's five with special autonomy, and its schools have long taught in Italian, Slovene and Friulian under a border settlement that followed the twentieth century's contested frontier.