French Muslim basketball player Salimata Sylla criticized France’s decision to forbid its players from wearing headscarves during the 2024 Paris Olympics, calling it “sad and demeaning” to be born in a nation that “doesn’t want us,” reported Anadolu on Thursday.
France’s restrictions on athletes wearing religious symbols has sparked significant controversy, and not just in France, where some applaud the restriction, while others feel it may prevent Muslim women from participating in sports.
Sylla, a 26-year-old French basketball player known as “Sali,” who wears a hijab, has been speaking out against the country’s prohibition on headscarves in official events since January.
Sylla told Anadolu that she was not “very surprised” by France’s Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera’s announcement on September 24 that French competitors would not be permitted to wear their headscarves at the Olympics, adding poignantly, “They didn’t wanted us to play right from the beginning.”
She stated that the Olympic Games are the most anticipated athletic event in the world, “perhaps an event we won’t see in France again.”
“It’s very saddening to see that as visible Muslim young women, we are being excluded. To realize that we were born in a country that doesn’t want us is not only sad but also demeaning,” she said. “Everyone should be able to participate in sports.”
Sylla thanked Marta Hurtado, the spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, for defending women and supporting their right to wear the clothing they choose to wear just two days after France’s Sports Minister declared that no women in the country’s delegation would be allowed to wear their headscarves during the 2024 Paris Olympics.
France has had a national policy of secularism since 1905, and as a result, public employees and students in public schools are prohibited from wearing religious symbols such as headscarves or necklaces with large crosses.