The French Senate voted 160 to 143 in favor of the ban on wearing the hijab and other “conspicuous religious symbols” in sports competitions. The amendment was proposed by the right-wing Les Républicains, which argued the hijab could risk the safety of athletes wearing it while playing sports.
You really couldn’t make this up.
In France, Muslim women using their agency, and exercising their human rights to wear what they choose to wear, is deemed a safety risk. France’s attempt to apparently liberate and save Muslim women from ourselves and our headscarves is a racist and colonial project dressed up as upholding the country’s secular values. The project heaps Islamophobic harm on Muslim women.
Indeed, it is misogynistic and hateful to force women to remove hijab — as much as it is misogynistic and hateful to force women to wear hijab.
The proposed ban is opposed by Emmanuel Macron’s…
