"France: Hijab bans in French sport expose discriminatory double standards ahead of Olympic and Paralympic Games"

The ban on French women athletes who wear headscarves from competing at the Olympic Games breaches international human rights laws and exposes the discriminatory hypocrisy of French authorities and the craven weakness of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said Amnesty International in a new report published ahead of the Paris Olympic Games. 

“We can’t breathe anymore. Even sports, we can’t do them anymore”: Violations of Muslim women’s and girls’ human rights through hijab bans in sports in France, details the devastating impact that hijab bans are having on Muslim women and girls at all levels of French sport.

“Banning French athletes from competing with sports hijabs at the Olympic and Paralympic Games makes a mockery of claims that Paris 2024 is the first Gender Equal Olympics and lays bare the racist gender discrimination that underpins access to sport in France,” said Anna Błuś, Amnesty International’s Women’s Rights Researcher in Europe.

“Discriminatory rules policing what women wear are a violation of Muslim women’s and girls’ human rights and have a devastating impact on their participation in sport, blocking efforts to make sports more inclusive and more accessible.” 

Hijab bans in multiple sports in France have created an untenable situation whereby the country hosting the Olympic Games is in breach of multiple obligations under international human rights treaties to which it is a party as well as commitments and values set out in the IOC’s own human rights framework. Despite repeated demands, the IOC has so far refused to call on sporting authorities in France to overturn their bans on athletes wearing the hijab at the Olympics and at all levels of sport. In response to a letter from a coalition of organizations urging it to take action, the IOC claimed that France’s prohibition on sports hijabs was outside the remit of the Olympic movement, claiming that “freedom of religion is interpreted in many different ways by different states.”  The IOC’s response did not mention other rights violated by the ban, such as freedom of expression and access to health.

France’s bans on sports headgear contradict the clothing rules of international sports bodies such as FIFA (International Football Federation), FIBA (International Basketball Federation) and FIVB (International Volleyball Federation). Amnesty International looked at rules in 38 European countries and found that France is the only one that has enshrined bans on religious headwear either on the level of national laws or individual sports regulations. [...]

France’s exclusionary bans cause humiliation, trauma and fear and have resulted in many women and girls dropping out of sports they love or even seeking opportunities in other countries. Preventing Muslim women and girls from fully and freely participating in sports, for leisure and recreation or as a career, can have devastating impacts on all aspects of their lives, including on their mental and physical health. [...]

And all of this is occurring against a backdrop relentless, twenty-year campaign of harmful lawmaking and regulation of Muslim women’s and girls’ clothing in France, fuelled by prejudice, racism and gendered Islamophobia. [...]