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French PM seeks to mend cabinet rift over hijab in sport

AFP
Wednesday, Mar 19, 2025

PARIS: French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou on Tuesday sought to impose unity on his government as a top minister threatened to resign over whether women should be allowed to wear the Islamic headscarf in sports competitions. Currently, it is up to individual sports federations in France to decide whether women can wear the hijab in competition.

But legislation is going through parliament to ban it completely in professional and amateur competition, in a move backers say will shore up France’s strictly secular modern republic.