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France’s right -handed Senate has supported a draft law to prohibit religious symbols, including Muslim headscarf in all sports competitions, professionals and amateur, the allegations of discrimination against the left and lawyers.
The legislation still needs a majority of votes from the National Assembly of the underside to become a law, but the right -wing government has thrown its weight behind the measure.
Critics see the headscarf of some Muslim women as a symbol for creeping Islamization according to fatal jihadists attacks in France, while others say that they should only practice their religion and wear what they want.
Under the French brand of secularism, civil servants, teachers and students can wear obvious religious symbols such as a Christian cross, Jewish Kippa, Sikh Turban or Muslim headscarf, also known as hijab.
While such a comprehensive ban has not yet been present in all sports in France, several associations have already prohibited religious clothing, including football and basketball.
On Tuesday evening, the Senate of the Oberhaus agreed with 210 to 81 to “ban carrying a shield or outfit, which allegedly showed a political or religious affiliation in competitions at regional and national level, which were organized by all sports associations in the country.
The draft law also prohibits outfits that could “contraven” the principles of French secularism in the swimming pools of France.
Junior Minister of the Interior Francois Noel Buffet from the right Republican (LR) party said that the “government violently supported the bill” and described him as a welcome step “against separatism”.
Michel Savin, the LR Senator, who submitted the bill, said “communitarian temptations” overrun.
They were rejected by several senators on the left, which described the draft law as a violation of the 1905 law on the protection of freedom of conscience.
“By using this founding principle to serve your anti-Muslim rhetoric, you will only carry out confusion and stereotypes,” said the socialist Senator Patrick Kanner.
Mathilde Ollivier, a Senator of the Green Party, accused the right to “direct and well organized Muslim women” in order to exclude them from sports.
Amnesty International said before the vote that such a law would only exacerbate “the obvious religious, racist and gender -specific discrimination, which was already experienced by Muslim women in France.
“All women have the right to choose what to put on,” said Amnesty researcher Anna Blus.
“The Sporthijab bans in France are another measure that underpins Islamophobia and a patriarchal attempt, which Muslim women wear.”
The UN experts in October said that the rules of the soccer and basketball associations and the decision of the French government to prevent the French athletes from wearing the headscarf while they are wearing their country at the Olympic Games in Paris, “disproportionate and are discriminatory “.
Ama-AH/SJW/BC
