French senators vote to ban hijab in sports competitions

32 comments
  1. This is just a political stunt from righ to far right senators in view of the next election, it won’t become the law.

    edit: why is this getting down voted? It’s the obvious truth. This text has absolutely no chance of getting adopted by the national assembly. It’ll probably will get rejected before it even get to a vote.

  2. Why though? Do they not think that this will backfire and cause the opposite of what they were hoping for?

  3. How is a hijab hurting anyone in sports? This level of illiberalism is something I’d expect from Poland or Hungary but France? rly?

  4. At this point I don’t know why France just doesn’t outright ban Islam all together. Weird version of liberty they have there.

  5. Exactly what harm does it do to wear a headscarf in a sports match? And the logical extension to this, is to ban all footballers who cross themselves before joining the pitch, or religious tattoos, or making prayer signs, whatever. I’m as atheist as they come, but I don’t think banning does anything good whatsoever. A little bit of tolerance from everybody would be nice.

  6. This is so stupid. If you’re a Muslim woman with a strict family who plays sport this is another barrier to you and another thing that stifles your freedom. What the fuck is the point of policing the way someone dresses. France is insane.

  7. FFS.

    The far-right are a bunch of socially conservative fuckwits who want to tell women what they can/cannot wear. They have exactly zero ideas to contribute, so try get power through stirring hate. It doesn’t matter if they’re worshipping Mohammed or Saint Joan d’Arc, they should be put on the same one way rocket ship together.

    Anyway, I welcome the influx of sports playing muslim women that will come to Ireland after this.

  8. Of course. To make sure that women aren’t forced to wear that piece of clothing or be punished, we will punish any woman who Wears that piece of clothing. This will truly liberate women to be able to do whatever they want by forbiding them from doing a thing

  9. French person here. I see you guys are having troubles to understand a specificity of the French culture which is “laicity” and it’s perfectly understandable. In your culture religion is okay and it can be freely expressed in politics and public places. This is what you call integration.

    In France state and religion have been separated ever since 1905 after almost a century of disputes. Religion can’t be freely expressed in public places especially not in politics. But of course people are allowed to believe in what they want in private.

    We believe that this is the best way to protect the people’s right to believe in what they want as it gives limits to proselytism and allows people to live their lives out of their religion in public places.

    The hijab has been debated for almost 20 years now. People are still arguing about whether or not it is a religious symbol. So far the consensus seems to tend towards the religious symbol.

    So I don’t think in this case the hijab has much to do with women’s rights… It’s mostly a “laicity” thing.

  10. So you are bringing liberating women and giving them equality they desperately deserve by legally forcing to not wear an item of clothing of their choice (or what should be their choice at least), right.

    I understand France is a laïque country and public religious display is somewhat forbidden or at least not encouraged but this is a little bit too far, isn’t it?

  11. Hijab-wearing women competing in sports are the standard bearers of the Muslim brotherhood. “Look how cool Islam is.” Meanwhile girls who refuse to wear the hijab are threatened, called whores and sluts by their fellow Muslims in France’s Muslim enclaves.
    People in France have their eyes wide open as far Islam is concerned.

  12. I would like to get the news on this, but an article on this doesn’t get much more biased than Al-Jazeera, so it’s unfortunate this is the article that was posted on the subject. It’s literally media funded by an Islamic state. It would be like reading articles about Christianity from “The catholic post”.

    Edit: This is actually a ban on religious symbols for people operating in an official capacity, which is in line with France’s cultural historic of secular values. This doesn’t really ban adults from wearing hijabs in private or public, but I’m honestly not surprised with with framing of the title from AL Jazeera considering their bias.

  13. This isn’t a ban on hijabs, it’s a ban on religious attire in sports competitions, which is very much in line with the cultural idea of secularity in France.

    However, it’s not surprising that an Islamic media agency (AL Jazeera) would frame it as such, as a result of the severe conflict of interest within that media.

  14. Nice. Religion isn’t a free pass. If you can’t come dressed as a pirate, a clown, or a dragon, you can’t come dressed like that either

Leave a Reply