2 yıl önce

Bill banning hijab in sports events goes to French National Assembly

Draft bill includes a clause, stipulating the wearing "of conspicuous religious symbols is prohibited" in events and competitions organised by sports federations.

Reuters

Supporters of women soccer team "Les Hijabeuses" play soccer in front of city hall in Lille as part of a protest as Senate rejects voting on a bill featuring controversial hijab ban in competitive sports.

A draft bill that would ban the wearing of the hijab in sporting competitions has passed on to France's National Assembly after the Senate declined to vote on the legislation.

The broader bill is devoted to "democratising sport", including how the big sporting federations are governed.

But it includes a clause, previously attached as an amendment by the conservative-dominated upper house, stipulating that the wearing “of conspicuous religious symbols is prohibited” in events and competitions organised by sports federations.

The move is, however, opposed by President Emmanuel Macron's centrist government and its allies who command a majority in the National Assembly, which has the final vote.

The place of religion and religious symbols worn in public is a long-running matter of controversy in France, home to Europe's largest Muslim minority.

Far-right campaign against Muslims

Identity and Islam's place in France are hot-button issues ahead of April's presidential election, with two far-right candidates whose programmes question Islam's compatibility with the Republic's values polling nearly 35 percent of voter support between them.

Elsewhere, divisions over the hijab –– the covering of the hair and neck worn by Muslim women –– have fanned protests in the Indian state of Karnataka after the right-wing government there banned the garment in school classrooms.

Macron's government had been swift to denounce the amendment. Given the majority wielded by his party and its allies in the lower house, the amendment is likely to be removed from the broader bill.

Summer Olympics in 2024

France will host the Summer Olympics in 2024 and critics of the legislation have questioned how it would affect protocol at the Games, whose participants will include conservative Muslim countries if it were adopted.

Right-wing Senator Stephane Piednoir said the Olympic Charter provided for political and religious neutrality.

"We cannot compromise secularism and France cannot undercut the Olympic movement," Piednoir told the upper house.

He said the bill was designed to allow "all women to participate in sports competitions without any differentiation, without any sign of discrimination, without any symbol linked to the veil which we know is a political tool."

The Olympics charter states that "no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas."

SOURCE: Reuters