The weeks go by and the controversies are alike for the Paris police headquarters. In a press release published on Tuesday evening, the institution headed by Didier Lallement explains that it has issued an order prohibiting “the protest demonstration declared by an association called “the deputies play football with the Hijabeuses””. This group of young sportswomen defending the wearing of the veil had planned to play a match against elected officials, this Wednesday from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., on the Esplanade des Invalides in the 7th arrondissement of Paris.
To motivate this ban, the Paris police headquarters highlights the “risks of public order disturbances”. This match could indeed, according to the “PP”, attract “in addition to the people who support it, people hostile to the cause defended and likely to do battle with the first”. What to threaten “both for the safety of the demonstrators themselves and for the maintenance of public order”, according to the press release.
The institution of Lallement indeed recalls that “the right to wear the Islamic veil called hijab during football competitions”, which is a “practice prohibited by the regulations of the French Football Federation”, arouses “a lively and controversial debate between supporters and opponents of this request, all the more strongly exacerbated in the current pre-election period and in the international context”.
Directed by Didier Lallement
The young women had made an appointment for “football matches with Hijabeuses, allies and elected officials + speaking out”, they announced. The initiative of this collective created in May 2020, and which stands up in particular against the French Football Federation (FFF) hostile to their wearing of the veil in competition, is not a first. They had already invited each other briefly on January 26 in the Luxembourg garden, at the foot of the Senate, to exchange a few balloons with a banner “Football for All”before being asked to leave by the gendarmes.
The date of the return match which was scheduled for Wednesday coincides with the return to the Palais Bourbon of a proposed LREM law on sport, around which deputies and senators disagree on the issue of the ban on wearing the veil in competition .
The senators had voted on January 19 an amendment prohibiting the port “of conspicuous religious signs” during a sports competition, immediately erased by the deputies. The two chambers having been unable to agree on a common text, a new reading is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon in the Assembly. The debates must then go back to the Senate on February 16 before the deputies give their last word.
When the decision of the Paris police headquarters was announced, the Hijabeuses reacted on Twitter. Denouncing an argument based on “racist prejudice” and “a deliberately maintained political confusion”, They write : “We obviously took the matter to court to challenge this arbitrary, unjust and completely disproportionate decision.”
An emergency hearing is scheduled for Wednesday morning regarding the prohibition order issued by the institution of Didier Lallement. “On our side, we will play no matter what,” announces the collective of young sportswomen.