A French nun was forced to turn down a place in a state retirement home because she was told she would have to stop wearing her religious habit and headscarf.

The case has reopened the row over secularism in France just weeks after a Muslim woman was asked to remove her headscarf while accompanying a school outing.

The nun, who is in her 70s and has spent her entire adult life in a convent, wanted to retire to Vesoul in eastern France, where she was born, and applied for a self-contained apartment with a communal eating room at a local authority-run care home.

She received a letter from the town hall telling her that she was on a waiting list for a place but because of France’s strict rules on secularism, she would have to remove her habit and headscarf.

“Within our homes, our residents may have preferences and beliefs and these should be respected … with regard to secularism, all ostentatious religious symbols cannot be allowed in order to guarantee everyone’s tranquility,” it read.

She was also informed she could wear a cross as long as it was discreet, according to the local radio station France Bleu.

The nun turned down the place at the retirement home back in July, but the story emerged recently, inflaming the already contentious debate in France between individual religious freedom and the republic’s insistence on strict secularism in the public sector including schools, government and public buildings.

In October, a member of the far-right National Rally (RN) party caused outrage after confronting a mother accompanying a group of school pupils visiting a regional parliament and insisting she remove her headscarf. The case has divided opinion within the government and parliament.

In his newsletter, Vesoul priest Father Florent Belin said the diocese had found an apartment for the unnamed sister, who had moved from a convent in the Drôme in the south-east, but she was now living alone and having to make her own meals.

Belin wrote that the care home’s attitude smacked of “anti-Christian” sentiment and said “our ears are being filled with principles of secularism that are not understood”.

“At the moment the press is talking about a Muslim woman who was asked to take off her headscarf because she was in a public place and everyone cries it’s a scandal for this woman! Our nun, she had to accept finding a new place to live,” he wrote.

“What is secularism? Surely it’s allowing everyone to live their faith without disturbing anyone else. I don’t think a nun’s veil is disturbing because it’s not a sign of submission but of devotion.”

Claude Ferry, a spokesperson for the local authority in charge of the care home, said the case was now closed.

“The nun refused the place we offered her and didn’t want to accept the house rules that are the same for everyone,” he said.