20 years after France’s hijab ban, the issue remains divisive

Sarah Bennani, 19, said she remembers precisely when she started wearing the hijab full-time. 

Bennani, who was born in the suburbs of Paris, had just started a university degree in international business. As she watched young women walk into lecture halls wearing the Islamic headscarf, she marveled at their confidence and decided to wear one, too. 

“They just seemed so normal about wearing it. And I was like, OK, so what am I so afraid of?”  

Her parents, who are from Morocco, felt differently. “They are concerned about my security and they worry that I won’t be able to get a job wearing it.” Maybe they are right, she said, but she remains confident.

“I am more than just my hijab,” said Bennani, who now presents her own podcast “Les Percées,” or “Breakthrough.” 

The law banning the hijab and any other “symbols or clothing that conspicuously demonstrate a pupil’s religious affiliation” has been in place in public schools and government institutions in France since 2004.

The French government has said the hijab ban reflected the country’s long-held policy of secularism —  laïcite — that institutes the separation of church and state. A majority of the French public — 77% — say they are “opposed” to demonstrations of religious symbols in schools and support for the ban is high.

But with French athletes now prohibited from wearing any religious items while competing at the summer’s Olympic Games in Paris, the issue is more divisive than ever. 

Jeanne Malet, a senior research executive at Verian, a research institute in Paris, said support for the hijab ban has actually increased over the last two decades, but this position varies across generations.

According to her 2023 study, just 31% of 18-to-30-year-olds supported the rule, Malet said.

Muslims make up an estimated 10% of the population in France — the largest Muslim population in Europe. Malet said teachers are generally very supportive of the law prohibiting the display of religious symbols in schools — about 90% said they are in favor of the ban in public secondary schools. 

Christophe Naudin, a history teacher at a public high school in Paris, is among them. Naudin said that his students across the religious spectrum need to understand that the ban is not anti-religion or anti-freedom — it’s for their own protection from proselytism in the classroom. 

As an expert in medieval Islam, Naudin has shown images of the Prophet Muhammad in his classroom — an act considered by some to be blasphemous. It rarely causes any problem, he said. But the brutal murder of teacher Samuel Paty in Paris in 2020 has made him more cautious. Paty was killed outside his school in a suburb of Paris after showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad during a class on freedom of expression.

That really hit home, Naudin said. In 2015, Naudin was at the Bataclan theater in Paris when Islamist militants attacked. The multipronged assault on the French capital resulted in the deaths of 130 people. It was the deadliest attack on French soil since World War II. 

Surviving that attack had a huge impact on Naudin.

“I have a vision of the world that’s not very positive. In fact, I’m always planning for the worst.” Spending time with his students helped him recover, he said. “They are the ones who give me hope.”

While he broadly supports the ban on religious symbols in schools, Naudin said the purpose of similar restrictions in other areas of French life are far from clear.

Hijab ban in sports

In 2022, basketball player Hélène Bâ was warming up with her teammates before a game in Paris when her coach approached. He told her that the referee had decided she could only participate if she removed her sports hijab. The referee called the hijab “dangerous,” and said it had to be removed under the new rules.

A month prior, the French Basketball Federation had introduced Article 9.3 to the General Sports Regulations, expressly banning “the wearing of any equipment with a religious or political connotation in competitions.”

Bâ explained that the head covering was specifically made for sport and approved by the International Basketball Federation, but the referee refused to let her play. Bâ spent the game sitting on the bench, humiliated. 

“I didn’t want people to talk to me, I didn’t want anyone’s pity. I just felt numb and I just wanted to get out of there,” Bâ said. 

For a number of months, Bâ would turn up for games but more often than not, a referee would tell her she couldn’t play unless she removed her head covering. Now she no longer bothers to go. 

Bâ said she never considered removing her hijab for the game.

“When I wear it, I feel like it protects me, like I’m closer to God. I feel more at ease in society, in my body, in my religion, within the community.” 

Amnesty International condemned the rule. It also pointed out that the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) had lifted its global ban on head coverings in 2017.

The federation cited “security” reasons for the ban. But given that the clothing Bâ and others wear is regulated by the International Basketball Federation, that didn’t stack up, according to Haifa Tlili, a sociology researcher in Paris. The federation also said the ban had to do with “neutrality” but failed to elaborate.

Tlili had a grimmer explanation: “Islamophobia, anti-Muslim racism and sexism.”

Last September, Tlili, Bâ and other Muslim players and coaches formed the collective “Basket Pour Toutes” (“Basketball for All”) to campaign against the ban. 

That same month, Minister of Sports and Olympic and Paralympic Games Amélie Oudéa-Castéra announced that French athletes would be forbidden from wearing the hijab or any other religious items while competing at the Olympics in Paris this summer.

“That means a ban on any type of proselytizing. That means absolute neutrality in public services, the France team will not wear the headscarf,” Oudea-Castera told France 3 TV.

A few days after the French sports minister’s comments, the International Olympic Committee said “there would be no restrictions on wearing the hijab or any other religious or cultural attire in the Olympic Village.” The United Nations’ human rights office also condemned the ban. 

The Committee said it was in contact with the French National Olympic and Sports Committee to understand the ban and said it understood the rule refers to the French team only. 

Bâ said she’s not surprised by the French government’s position but is deeply disappointed at the lackluster response from international sports bodies like the International Olympic Committee, which could have taken a much more forthright approach. 

French athletes are going to leave France because of these restrictions, Bâ said. 

Bâ believes Muslim women will become increasingly reluctant to get involved in sports because of these kinds of obstacles. 

“They are pushing the limits further and further back in France and this worries me. What will be left of our fundamental rights and freedoms if we continue down this path?” 

Editor’s note: Léontine Gallois contributed to reporting. The original story stated Jeanne Malet’s study came out in 2021. It has been corrected to 2023.