French PM convenes Cabinet members after ministers spar over banning hijabs in sports

Cracks started to appear within the government over the issue in recent days.

PARIS — French Prime Minister François Bayrou convened key Cabinet members on Tuesday after divisions among ministers over banning athletes from wearing hijabs during sporting events spilled into public view.

“There’s only one line within the government … no visible religious symbols should be worn in sports competitions,” French Minister for Gender Equality Aurore Bergé said in parliament after the meeting, seemingly settling the government’s position.

Religious symbols have been banned in elementary and secondary schools since 2004 but remained allowed in universities.

Earlier this year, the French Senate voted in favor of a proposal to ban “symbols or clothing ostensibly displaying a political or religious affiliation” in sports due to their educational role in “teaching cooperation and respect for common rules.” The proposal — which received the government’s support — argued that the ban was necessary to uphold France’s model of a colorblind, secular republic.

Though it passed in the Senate, the proposal must also be voted by the French lower house, the National Assembly.

Last week, French Sports Minister Marie Barsacq appeared to downplay the government’s plans to push for legislation on the issue, saying that banning religious symbols in amateur sporting competitions in France was “not a priority.”

Education Minister Élisabeth Borne, a former prime minister, said that it “was also up” to each individual sporting federation to determine its position on displaying religious symbols. The French football, basketball, and volleyball federations, for example, have already imposed religious neutrality in the competitions they organize.

Barsacq and Borne’s positions were met with staunch pushback from Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin, who went as far as accusing the sports minister of being “naïve.” He even threatened to resign in an interview with Le Parisien shortly before the meeting with Bayrou.

“We need to ban headscarves in sporting competitions, it’s obvious,” he said Tuesday. “I regret that the sports minister and the education minister are not stronger advocates for this.”

The government’s reaffirmed stance was welcomed by the conservative interior minister, Bruno Retailleau. “The Prime Minister was right to reiterate the government line,” Retailleau wrote on X.

Last summer in Paris, France was the only country to ban its athletes from wearing the hijab, sparking condemnation from human rights organizations like Amnesty International. United Nations experts have called restrictions on headscarves from French sporting federations “discriminatory,” arguing that secularism was not a “legitimate ground” to impose such a ban.