Amnesty International criticised the French government’s decision to ban women athletes representing France at the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games from wearing headscarves in a report released Tuesday. The report stated that the prohibition breaches international human rights laws and said the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) response to calls for lifting the ban was “inadequate”.
The report detailed that France banned religious headwear through national laws or sports regulations. The report emphasised that such exclusionary policies disproportionately impact Muslim women and girls and “cause humiliation, trauma and fear.” Amnesty International’s Women’s Rights Researcher in Europe Anna Błuś noted:
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[s], blocking efforts to make sports more inclusive and more accessible … No policymaker should dictate what a woman can or cannot wear and no woman should be forced to choose between the sport she loves and her faith, cultural identity, or beliefs[.]
The report denounces the IOC’s response to a letter published by the Sport & Rights Alliance and Basket Pour Toutes, alongside other advocacy organisations on June 11, 2024. The letter, addressed to IOC President Thomas Bach, petitioned the IOC to use their leverage to “publicly call on sporting authorities in France to overturn all bans on athletes wearing the hijab in French sport, both at [the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games] and at all times and all levels of [the] sport.”
The letter additionally stipulates that these policies breach international human rights treaties to which France is a party, whilst also contravening the IOC Strategic Framework on Human Rights and the Principles of Olympism.
The report states the IOC responded on June 18, noting “France’s prohibition on sports hijabs was outside the remit of the Olympic movement” and claiming that “freedom of religion is interpreted in many different ways by different states.”
The prohibition on wearing religious headwear exists in several French sports federations across all levels of competition, imposing barriers to participation for Muslim women and girls. The Fédération Française de Football and Fédération Française de Basketball are among those that prohibit wearing religious head coverings in their guidelines. French collectives that advocate for non-discrimination and gender equality, such as Les Hijabeuses and Basket Pour Toutes, have been campaigning for such bans to be overturned.
Earlier this year, in an open letter published on International Women’s Day, a coalition of athletes alongside Basket Pour Toutes, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Sport & Rights Alliance petitioned the French Basketball Federation to “overturn its current policy banning religious headwear, which openly defies international human rights laws and standards by disproportionately impacting and targeting observant Muslim women and girls.”
The French constitutional principle of laїcité has implicated the public expression of religion in France for decades, imposing restrictions across professions and introducing similar prohibitions.
