Athletes frustrated as France mulls Muslim headscarf ban in sport

PARIS – On the outskirts of Paris, 44-year-old French Muslim weightlifter Sylvie Eberena concentrates hard and pushes 80kg of bar and weights clean over her veiled head.

In 2024, the single mother made her four children proud by becoming the French national champion in her amateur category, a remarkable achievement after taking up the sport at the age of 40.

But now the Muslim convert fears she will no longer be able to compete as the French government is pushing for a new law to ban the headscarf in domestic sports competitions.

“It feels like they’re trying to limit our freedoms each time a little more,” said Eberena, a passionate athlete who trains five days a week.

“It’s frustrating because all we want is to do sport.”

Under France’s secular system, civil servants, teachers, students and athletes representing France abroad cannot wear obvious religious symbols, such as a Christian cross, a Jewish kippah, a Sikh turban or a Muslim headscarf, also known as a hijab.

Until now, individual national sports federations could decide whether to allow the hijab in domestic competitions. But the new legislation aims to forbid the head covering in all professional and amateur competitions countrywide.

Backers say that would unify confusing regulation, boost secularism and fight extremism.

Critics argue it would be just the latest rule discriminating against visibly Muslim women. The bill passed in the Senate in February and is soon to go to a vote in the lower house of the French Parliament.

Some proponents want to stop what they call “Islamist encroachment” in a country that has been rocked by deadly jihadist attacks in recent years.

But critics point to a 2022 Interior Ministry report finding that data “failed to show a structural or even significant phenomenon of radicalisation” in sport.

French Olympic judo