Italy to ban face covers, limit foreign student numbers

Face coverings are to be banned in Italian schools and the number of foreign students allowed in classrooms will be restricted, Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced on Sunday.

The country is among Europe's most exposed to migrant arrivals due to its central Mediterranean location, making migration a persistent challenge for successive governments.

"Italian children cannot feel like a minority in the classroom," Meloni told supporters at Fenix, an annual gathering hosted by the youth branch of her right-wing Brothers of Italy party.

"If there is only one child in a class who doesn't understand Italian, that child will likely be able to learn the language and integrate quickly with the help of classmates and teachers," she added.

"If the number of children who do not understand the language of instruction becomes large, or even forms the majority, that is no longer integration; that is neglect."

Meloni said plans would soon be presented to her cabinet to cap foreign student numbers, outlaw face coverings and require parents of pupils struggling with integration to learn Italian, though she offered no specifics on what the maximum number of foreign students per class would be, or how the cap might work.

Meloni added: "You must go to school with your face uncovered, and in Italy no one, in the name of a real or supposed tradition, can decide that a young woman must hide herself."

According to research institute Fondazione ISMU, close to 930,000 non-citizen students attend Italian schools — roughly 11.6 percent of the total pupil population. That figure has dropped 4.5 percent over the past 10 years, the institute's data shows.

The issue of immigration helped propel Meloni into office, with curbing arrivals a cornerstone of her election platform, and this is not the first such proposal from Meloni's administration.

Her party put forward legislation in 2025 to ban the burqa and niqab across all public spaces, framing it as a counter to "Islamic separatism". The burqa is a garment that covers the entire body, including the face, with a mesh panel over the eyes. The niqab is a face veil that leaves the eye area visible.

The party said it would impose fines for those who wore the items in schools, universities, shops or offices. The legislative bill, which would also criminalize virginity testing and toughen penalties for forced marriages, is still being debated in Italy's lower house of parliament.

France led the way in 2011 as the first European nation to impose a nationwide burqa ban. Since then, more than 20 countries, including Denmark, Tunisia, the Netherlands and Belgium, have enacted restrictions on face coverings in public.