SARCELLES, France — Every time Mama Diakité goes to a football match, her stomach churns.
It happened again on a recent Saturday afternoon in Sarcelles, a northern suburb of Paris. Her amateur team had come to play the local club, and Diakité, a 23-year-old Muslim midfielder, feared she would not be allowed to play with her hijab.
This time the referee let her in. “It worked,” she said at the end of the match, leaning against the fence bordering the field, her smiling face wrapped in a black Nike scarf.
But Diakité had only slipped through the cracks.
For years, the French football federation has banned players participating in competitions from wearing conspicuous religious symbols such as the hijab, a rule it says is consistent with the organization’s strict secular values. Although the ban is applied loosely at the amateur level, it has weighed on Muslim players for years, crushing their hopes of a professional career and driving some of them away from the game.
In an increasingly multicultural France, where women’s football is booming, the ban has also sparked a growing backlash. At the forefront of the fight is The Hijabeusesa group of young hijab-wearing footballers from different teams who have joined forces to campaign against what they describe as a discriminatory rule that excludes Muslim women from the sport.
Their activism struck a chord in France, relaunching lively debates on integration of Muslims in a country with a tortured relationship with Islamand highlighting the struggle of French sporting authorities to reconcile their defense of strict secular values with growing calls for greater representation on the field.
“What we want is to be accepted as we are, to implement these great slogans of diversity, of inclusion,” declared Founé Diawara, the president of the Hijabeuses, which has 80 members. “Our only desire is to play football.”
The Hijabeuses collective was created in 2020 with the help of researchers and community organizers to try to resolve a paradox: although French laws and FIFA, the governing body of world football, allow sportswomen to wear the hijab , the French football federation banned it, arguing that it would break with the principle of religious neutrality on the field.
Supporters of the ban believe that the hijab portends Islamist radicalization that is taking over sport. But the personal stories of Hijabeuses members highlight how football is about empowerment – and how the ban continues to feel like a step backwards.
Diakité started playing football at the age of 12, initially hiding it from his parents, who considered football a boys’ sport. “I wanted to become a professional soccer player,” she said, calling it a “dream.”
Jean-Claude Njehoya, her current coach, said that “when she was younger, she had a lot of skills” that could have propelled her to the highest level. But “from the moment” she understood that the hijab ban would have an impact on her, he said, “she didn’t really go any further.”
Diakité said she decided on her own to wear the hijab in 2018 – and give up her dream. She now plays for a third division club and plans to open a driving school. “No regrets,” she said. “Either I am accepted as I am or I am not. And that’s all.”
Karthoum Dembele, a 19-year-old midfielder who wears a nose ring, also said she had to confront her mother to be allowed to play. She quickly joined an intensive sports program in middle school and participated in club trials. But it wasn’t until she learned of the ban four years ago that she realized she might no longer be allowed to compete.
“I managed to get my mother to give in and I was told that the federation would not let me play,” Dembélé said. “I said to myself: What a joke!
Other members of the group recall episodes where referees barred them from the field, prompting some, feeling humiliated, to quit football and turn to sports where the hijab is permitted or tolerated, like handball or futsal.
Throughout last year, Les Hijabeuses pressured the French football federation to overturn the ban. They sent letters, met with officials and even organized a demonstration at the federation’s headquarters – to no avail. The federation declined to comment for this article.
Paradoxically, it was the Hijabeuses’ fiercest opponents who ended up putting them in the spotlight.
In January, a group of conservative senators attempted to enshrine the soccer federation’s hijab ban into law, arguing that the hijab threatened to spread radical Islam in sports clubs. This decision reflects persistent unease in France regarding the Muslim veil, which is regularly shakes controversial. In 2019, a French store scrapped plans to sell hijab designed for runners after an avalanche of criticism.
Energized by the efforts of senators, Les Hijabeuses led an intense lobbying campaign against the amendment. Taking advantage of their strong presence on social networks – the group has nearly 30,000 followers on Instagram – they launched a petition which has collected more than 70,000 signatures; rallied dozens of sports celebrities to their cause; and held games in front of the Senate building and with professional athletes.
Vikash Dhorasoo, a former French midfielder who attended a match, said the ban left him stunned. “I just don’t understand,” he said. “It’s Muslims who are being targeted here.”
Stéphane Piednoir, the senator behind the amendment, denied the accusation that the legislation specifically targeted Muslims, saying it focused on all visible religious symbols. But he acknowledged that the amendment was motivated by the wearing of the Muslim veil, which he called a “propaganda vehicle” for political Islam and a form of “visual proselytism.” (Piednoir also condemned the display of PSG star Neymar’s Catholic tattoos as “unfortunate” and questioned whether the religious ban should extend to them.)
The amendment was ultimately rejected by the government majority in Parliament, not without friction. Parisian police banned a demonstration organized by Les Hijabeuses and the French Minister of Sports, which said law allows women wearing hijab to play, clashed government colleagues opposing the headscarf.
The Hijabeuses’ fight may not be popular in France, where six out of ten people support banning the hijab in the streets, according to a recent survey by the CSA polling firm. Marine Le Pen, the far-right presidential candidate who will face President Emmanuel Macron in the second round on April 24 — with a chance at a final victory – said that if elected, she would ban the Muslim veil in public spaces.
But on the football field, everyone seems to agree that the hijab should be allowed.
“It doesn’t bother anyone to play with it,” said Rana Kenar, 17, a Sarcelles player who came to watch her team face the Diakité club on a cold February evening.
Kenar was sitting in the stands with about 20 other players. All said they viewed the ban as a form of discrimination, noting that at the amateur level the ban was weakly enforced.
Even the referee of the Sarcelles match, who had let Diakité play, seemed to disagree with this ban. “I looked away,” he said, declining to give his name for fear of reprisals.
Pierre Samsonoff, former deputy director of the amateur branch of the football federation, believes that the question will inevitably return in the years to come, with the development of women’s football and the organization of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, which will bring together athletes veiled women of Muslim origin. countries.
Samsonoff, who initially defended the hijab ban, said he has since softened his stance, recognizing that the policy could end up ostracizing Muslim players. “The question is whether we are not creating worse consequences by deciding to ban this practice in the fields than by deciding to allow it,” he said.
Senator Piednoir said the players were ostracizing themselves. But he admits to having never discussed with athletes wearing the hijab to find out their motivations, comparing the situation to that of “firefighters” invited to go “listen to arsonists”.
Dembele, who manages the Hijabeuses’ social media accounts, said she was often struck by the violence of the online comments and the fierce political opposition.
“We’re holding on,” she said. “It’s not just for us, it’s also for the young girls who tomorrow will be able to dream of playing for France, for PSG”
Monique Jacques reports contributed.
