French hijab ban in sports called a ‘shameful moment’ as it prepares to host Olympics

As the world gets ready to celebrate sport and the best athletes and coaches in the world, there is a push by Olympic organizers to emphasize gender equality at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

On March 8, 2024 (not coincidentally International Women’s Day), the International Olympic Committee announced there would be complete gender parity on the field at this summer’s Games.

“We are about to celebrate one of the most important moments in the history of women at the Olympic Games, and in sport overall,” IOC president Thomas Bach said in a statement.

But the reality is that gender parity doesn’t necessarily mean open to all women. There are a number of women who have been dreadfully left behind in all the excitement about women athletes and by the hosts who claim to be celebrating their existence.

France bans women in hijab (an Islamic headscarf) from participating in sport. As the Olympic host, France could not ban athletes from all around the world from wearing a headscarf, so they banned their own athletes instead. When this was announced last September, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said: “No one should impose on a woman what she needs to wear, or not wear.”

How can France claim to champion women when it is stripping them away from sport in a move that is blatantly opposed to the IOC’s own human rights framework? The Olympic Charter states clearly: “The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Olympic Charter shall be secured without discrimination of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, sexual orientation, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.” 

France claims that secularism, which is at the heart of French identity, is at risk of being compromised by Muslim women in headscarves on the field of play. And because the country has determined that athletes representing France are technically public servants, then a strict regime of secularism is required. Recreational leagues and teams are not permitted to allow hijabs anywhere near the court, field or gym. 

Why is a hijab-clad woman sprinting down the sideline and scoring a goal for France considered a threat to identity? I fail to see how including women in sport, and showing solidarity with them as they choose to act on their personal rights of religious expression, is bad. Why not grow sport in different communities in France and let Black and brown women who are deeply connected to sport play and enjoy life? Apparently there’s no joie de vivre allowed for you in sports if you are a Muslim woman who chooses to cover. 

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen even chimed in on X (formerly Twitter) during the recent French elections: “No to the hijab in sport. And we will pass a law to make sure it is respected.”

Just last year at the FIFA Women’s World Cup, Moroccan player Nouhaila Benzina was celebrated for being the first woman in hijab to play soccer at the highest level of women’s sport. But if Benzina lived in France, she would be benched or thrown off the team. 

Earlier this week, Amnesty International released a report about the violations of Muslim women’s and girls’ rights because of the hijab sports ban in France.

It’s baffling and enraging to read the testimonies of many of the athletes from Muslim communities who are not permitted to play. I was on a call recently with athletes from all over the world alongside Sports & Rights Alliance, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The groups sent a letter to the IOC objecting to the ban and demanded that they “publicly call on sporting authorities in France to overturn all bans on athletes wearing the hijab in French sport, both at Paris 2024 and at all times and all levels of sport.” 

Listening to the women speak about what it felt like to be ripped away from sport was difficult. Their experiences felt cruel. How is this allowed to happen in 2024? Aren’t we way past controlling women’s bodies and denying them agency? 

Hélène Bâ is a French basketball player who began wearing a hijab when she was a teenager. Now she associates basketball with struggle and with a type of activism that she didn’t choose but was thrust upon her. She co-founded Basket Pour Toutes (Basketball For All Women) with sports sociologist Dr. Haifa Tlili. 

Bâ is not permitted to play in her home country since the top court in France upheld a ban on hijab in soccer June 2023. That cemented the rule.

But Bâ doesn’t mince her words about the hijab ban. She told Amnesty International that the ban “is a clear violation of the Olympic charter, values and provisions, and an infringement on our fundamental rights and freedoms.” 

There are groups like Les Hijabeuses and Basket Pour Toutes that continue to play and advocate publicly for hijab-wearing athletes. They hold festivals and tournaments but they are not included in any recognized type of sport in France and have no possibility of further opportunities.

Lina Boussaha thought her soccer career was over and left France to play professionally in Saudi Arabia and to represent Algeria internationally, the birthplace of her parents. Diaba Konaté left France on a basketball scholarship to play for UC Irvine in the NCAA but can’t play professionally in France because of her choice to wear a hijab. Konaté says it is  “heartbreaking.”

On the same day that the IOC released its own statement about gender parity, more than 80 athletes, including WNBA stars Natasha Cloud, Layshia Clarendon, USA Olympian Breanna Stewart and Olympic medallist fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad signed an open letter to urge the French Federation of Basketball (FFBB) and the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) to immediately overturn the hijab ban and uphold international human rights laws and standards in sports.

The IOC replied that discrimination of this kind is against the Olympic Charter, but added, “freedom of religion is interpreted in many different ways by sovereign states. This is reflected in national approaches to sport, too. In practice, the wearing of the hijab, veil or headscarf is highly debated in many countries.”

The letter then asserted that competing for French national teams meant those athletes are civil servants and must adhere to the “principles of secularism and neutrality.” Basically, athletes and participants have to adhere to principles of the Olympic host nation even if those principles are against the actual Olympic Charter. 

Even more sadly, the hijab ban in France applies not only to elite or professional sport but to youth sports as well. Research tells us that young girls have enough of a difficult time staying in sport. This data is from The Rally Report published by Canadian Women and Sport, but the realities are similar for adolescents around the world. You tell a 14-year-old girl that she isn’t welcome in sports because she wants to make a choice about clothing, I guarantee she will quit. 

I know from personal and professional research and dedicating my life to understanding why racist and xenophobic systems in sport still exist that this ban on hijab that is meant to uphold French identity isolates and marginalizes French Muslim women even more. It seems almost surreal that the Olympics are being hosted by a country that actively and ruthlessly excludes women from sport. 

Bâ said it best: “I think it’s going to be a shameful moment for France.”