Opinion: France is on a dangerous collision course with its Muslim population

The French Senate France is home to roughly 5.7 million Muslims and the largest Muslim population in Europe, It’s a stark contrast I have experienced first-hand. In 2015, I presented In 2016, authorities across 15 towns and municipalities across France banned the “burkini” — an all-in-one modest swimsuit that covers the whole body except the face. Again, the ban was imposed to supposedly uphold France’s secular values.And in May 2020, when France, like many countries across Europe and the world, made face masks mandatory in some settings like public transport to try and prevent the spread of coronavirus, France’s full face veil ban remained in place. Meaning, while French citizens were required to cover their faces by law, French Muslim women citizens covering their faces with the niqab continued to face the prospect of being fined and arrested by police.In 2018, the United Nations Human Rights Committee said France’s ban was a violation of religion and could impact Muslim women by “confining them to their homes, impeding their access to public services and marginalizing them.”When it comes to hijab and how Muslim women choose to dress, there is widespread cognitive dissonance in the French republic, illustrated once again in fine fashion by a recent Instagram post by Vogue France hailing actor Julia Fox’s arrival at Paris Men’s Fashion Week while wearing a Balenciaga trench coat, with a black headscarf, sunglasses and the caption: “Yes to the headscarf!”The post attracted widespread criticism from Muslim women and others pointing out the double standard of a white, wealthy, famous, American actress being praised for wearing a headscarf as a fashion choice — while a French Muslim woman choosing to wear a headscarf in her own country faces restrictions on her life choices and movements and possibly being fined and criminalized by the state. Vogue France later deleted the Instagram post.This is the hypocrisy that France must grapple with. Denying Muslim women our rights in the name of upholding so called neutrality is a fig leaf for further mainstreaming anti-Muslim bigotry and misogyny against Muslim women. French Muslim women are simply not standing for it anymore, and neither are many more Muslim women outside of France. We are collectively calling time on this racism and Islamophobia.Football and sports belong to all of us — however we choose to dress. Let Us Play.