On the outskirts of Paris, 44-year-old French french french weight lifter Sylvie Eberena focuses to lift 80 pounds, but the veil that covers her head may soon prevent her from competing in her country.
With the support of the Centro-right government, Parliament is promoting a new law to prohibit the use of the part in sports competitions amid the extreme right.
“They are trying to limit our freedoms increasingly,” says Eberena, a single mother who left her four children proud when she beat the French Amateur Championship last year.
“It’s frustrating, because all we want is to practice sports,” adds this converted Muslim that discovered the sport at 40 and now trains up to five days a week.
According to French “secularism”, civil servants, teachers, students and athletes representing France abroad cannot use visible religious symbols, such as a Christian cross, a Jewish kipa or a Muslim hijab.
So far, it was up to each French sports federation to decide whether the hijab was allowed in national competitions, and the French weight lifting federation admitted it. But the new legislation intends to ban it everywhere.
Its advocates believe that the law will unify confusing regulation, promote secularism and combat extremism. For its detractors, it is another form of discrimination against French Muslim women.
“Submission”
The bill, which would apply to visible symbols of any religion, should be voted on the National Assembly (Baixa Chamber) soon after its adoption in February by the Senate.
But their promoters seem to be concerned mainly about containing what they call “Islamic separatism” in a country shaken by a series of jihadist attacks in recent years.
However, a 2022 report from the Interior Ministry concluded that the data “did not show a structural or even significant phenomenon of radicalization in sport,” says critics of the law.
French Judo Olympic champion Teddy Riner said in March that France was “wasting time” with this debate and should think of “equality rather than attacking a religion.”
The veil “is a symbol of submission,” replied the interior minister, conservative Bruno Retailleau.
Eberena, who converted to Islam at age 19, says his costume was never a problem among his colleagues in weight: “Sport unites us, forces us to know each other, to overcome our prejudices.”
“Piece of cloth”
French football and basketball federations are among those that prohibited religious symbols, including the veil.
The Council of State, the maximum administrative jurisdiction of France, gave reason in 2023 on that of football, arguing that it could impose a “neutrality requirement”.
In 2024, UN experts considered these regulations “disproportionate and discriminatory”.
Samia Bouljedri, a 21 -year -old girl, had been playing football for four years at her Moutiers club, a town of the French Alps, when she decided to cover her hair when she finished high school.
The striker continued playing for her club, who after being fined several times for letting her play, asked her to take the hijab or leave football, she says.
“Because they ended my happiness like that, for a piece of cloth, I was very sad,” he confesses.
Protect or control
Laicism in France has its origin in a 1905 law to protect “freedom of conscience”, separate church and state and ensure its neutrality.
According to French jurist Rim-Sarah Alouane, the law intended to “guarantee the protection of religious freedom and freedom of conscience” and “protect the state in the face of possible abuses of religion.”
However, in recent years it has been “instrumentalized” against Muslims, in a context of anti -terrorist struggle, “to control the visibility of religion in the public space,” says the expert.
Sports Minister Marie Barsacq warned against the “confusion” between use of the veil and radicalization, but its pair of justice, Gérald Darmanin, said that if the government did not “defend secularism,” the far right would reinforce.
North Paris, 24-year-old Audrey Devaux, stopped competing after becoming Islam a few years ago, but continued training with his former basketball colleagues and now directs one of the club’s teams.
But when you go to the weekend games, you don’t allow you to sit on the bench with the veil, so you shout the instructions on the stands.
“At school I learned that secularism was to live, accept everyone and let everyone practice their religion,” says Devaux. “It seems to me that they are slightly changing the definition,” he concludes.
