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French Olympic sprinter Sounkamba Sylla took to social media days before the 2024 Olympic Games began, saying she would not be allowed to participate in the opening ceremony because of her hijab.
“You are selected for the Olympics, organized in your country, but you can’t participate in the opening ceremony because you wear a headscarf”, Sylla wrote on her private Instagram, according to The Associated Press.
The criticism was the latest in an ongoing controversy over France’s rule prohibiting female Muslim athletes from wearing the hijab, or headscarves, during the Olympics. The athletes, while competing for France, are considering civil servants and must adhere to principles of secularism, according to the country’s rules.
French Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra later said she’d be allowed to participate in the opening ceremony and the Games by covering her hair in a way that did not appear religious.Bans on hijab in French sports
Bans on wearing hijab in French sports have applied at all levels, including amateur and youth levels, even outside the Olympics, according to Amnesty International.
There isn’t a national law or policy banning hijabs in sports, but individual sports federations have their own regulations prohibiting the headscarf. Football (soccer), basketball and volleyball are some of the team sports banning them, Anna Blus, a women’s rights and gender justice researcher at Amnesty International, .
A ban against wearing the hijab in football was instituted in 2006. In basketball, it began in 2022 and in volleyball in 2023.
“We have documented over the years — (for) around 20 years — measures are being introduced constantly to limit Muslim women’s rights”, Blus said of France.
“There’s definitely been an increase in these types of measures in different areas of life over the past 20 years”, Blus said.
In 2023, France’s highest administrative court sided with the French Football Federation allowing its hijab ban in the sport.
“The reasoning it gave was very, very problematic, because it said that these types of bans like the one in the Football Federation, were legitimate — the justification could be to avoid clashes or confrontation”, Blus said.
