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“No agreement with the Senate could be reached, due to differences on the wearing of the veil in sports competitions. » Thus the deputy Belkhir Belhaddad (La République en Marche, LRM) recorded, on Monday January 31, yet another setback for what was to be the great law on sport for the quinquennium, reduced to a modest law aimed at “ democratize sport in France “.
After the planing of parity in sports federations by the Republican senators (LR), the presidential majority would have dispensed with having to deal with an amendment from these same senators planning to prohibit “the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols for participation in sporting events and competitions organized by federations and affiliated associations”.
In the viewfinder: the hijab and full swimwear. The senatorial majority (LR and Centrist Union) had already tried to extend to sport the provisions of the “secularism in schools” law of 2004 – imposing religious neutrality on users of public education – during the examination of the “separatism” law in April 2021.
Tense
The Minister for Sports, Roxana Maracineanu, wanted to stick to the republican commitment contract that federations and associations must sign since the adoption of this law, that is to say the status quo – at the “legal vagueness”, according to Senator Michel Savin (LR) – who lets the federations make their own arrangements. The French Football Federation (FFF) prohibits the hijab for female footballers – for reasons of hygiene, security and secularism – its handball counterpart authorizes it, for example.
At ” risk (…) to see community clubs appear” mentioned by Senator Michel Savin, the Minister opposed “our constitutional principles [qui] prohibit us from targeting a religion and disproportionately infringing on individual freedoms”. The regulations of the FFF are themselves challenged before the Council of State by the association Citizen Alliance and the collective of Hijabeuses.
When, in 2014, FIFA definitively authorized the veil in its competitions, while leaving its affiliates the freedom to ban it, the French Federation spoke of “serious mistake” – perhaps forgetting the past of football in Catholic patronages and the existence of “community clubs” throughout its history.
The world confederation endorsed its tolerance towards trivialized religious expressions. According to the Hijabeuses lawyerMarion Ogier, “if it were necessary to admit that neutrality is part of a sporting public order, then it would be necessary to demand [des footballeurs] Messi and Neymar that they stop signing themselves or that they hide their ostensible tattoo dedicated to their religious beliefs”.
In a political context marked by identity tensions, the stigmatization of Muslims and polarization, it is difficult to set the terms of a debate that only offers dilemmas, which cannot be resolved through postures.
Activity itself emancipatory
The defense of women’s right to wear what they want can be understood just as well as the criticism of a religious injunction which makes them an obligation of modesty, of a sexist nature, and which would include a proselytizing dimension. Should this criticism lead to a ban, and what would be the cost?
Unless you consider that wearing a religious sign can only be the expression of a communitarianism behind which fundamentalism hides, is it proportionate to attack a scarf (duly regulated by many federations) that young women want to wear while practicing an activity that is emancipatory in itself?
Making sport a bulwark against religious sexism would be more credible if sport did not continue to convey ordinary sexism. The controversies over the eroticization of sportswomen’s bodies highlight some paradoxes: requests for more covering clothing are made both in the name of feminism and for religious reasons…
We can demand that sports grounds be sanctuary, that we wear a single uniform under which all differences would magically disappear. However, sport, its enclosures and its clothing are with impunity the instruments of nationalist propaganda, of promotion of unworthy States or of activities as harmful as those of sports betting.
Is the sports hijab a threat to the Republic, should it constitute a new front line for the defense of secularism? Assuming that its wearing by simple practitioners represents a drift, depriving them of access to sport would confirm discrimination. It would be taking the risk of appearing more intolerant than what we intend to fight.
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