“European Court Backs Woman Dismissed in France for Wearing Head Scarf”, 13 July 2016

A French company that dismissed a Muslim woman for wearing a head scarf when dealing with clients unlawfully discriminated against her, according to an advisory opinion that the European Union’s highest court released…In the advisory opinion, Eleanor Sharpston, an advocate general with the European Court of Justice, sided with the Muslim woman…who lost her job with Micropole, a French information technology consultancy, in 2009 after she refused to abide by the company’s request that she remove her head scarf when meeting with clients.  She took her case to a French court, which referred it to the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice.  Ms. Sharpston found that Ms. Bougnaoui’s dismissal amounted to “direct discrimination” on the basis of religion or belief.  She said that there was “nothing to suggest that Ms. Bougnaoui was unable to perform her duties as a design engineer because she wore an Islamic head scarf,” and she noted that the company had affirmed “her professional competence”…