Paris 2024: How France’s hijab ban eventually came to bite back
Last month, as the Paris 2024 Olympic Games closing ceremony inched closer, the medal ceremony for the women’s marathon was held where the Netherlands’ Sifan Hassan received the gold medal for finishing the long-distance event in two hours, 22 minutes and 55 seconds – an Olympic record.
Not only this, the Dutchwoman became the first female Olympian to win the gold medal in the 5,000 metres, 10,000 metres and marathon events – having won gold in the first two events at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
At an Olympic Games where both male and female athletes received an equal number of berths for competing – 5,250 slots for both men and women – it was fitting that the sporting extravaganza closed with a women-centric athletics event.
Sifan Hassan (centre) posing with her gold medal at Paris 2024 (Image source: Getty Images)
But, in hindsight what became more fitting is how Hassan’s act of wearing a hijab – a religious headscarf worn by Muslim women – while receiving the gold medal poured cold water over the symbolism of the French government’s ban on its own female athletes from wearing it at sporting events and inside the Olympic Village.
The image of the final gold medal winner at Paris 2024 wearing a hijab during the medal ceremony must have surely had a lot of French government officials running around perplexed within their offices.
But why, at a Games heralded as a milestone in achieving gender equality at the Olympics, was a ban placed by the host nation on its own female athletes with regard to their attire in the first place?
And why is there still a lot of distance left to travel on the road that leads to gender equality in the true sense of the word in the international sporting arena?
Sifan Hassan: Trailblazer athlete makes history
Hassan, with her victory on the last day of the Olympic Games, became the only athlete in history to win medals across a middle-distance event, and both long-distance events at a single edition of the Olympic Games.
What is more remarkable is the manner in which she accomplished this milestone – she had less than two days to recover from the 10,000-metre final event and get ready for the women’s marathon.
Sifan Hassan euphoric after winning the women’s marathon (Image source: Getty Images)
And this is not any other marathon we are talking about – this was legitimately the hardest Olympic marathon course in the sporting event’s 128-year-long history, with hills and elevation that surpassed both the Boston and New York marathon courses combined.
What made the victory even more significant was the fact that she ascended the podium wearing the hijab – the item of clothing French female athletes were banned from donning at the Olympics due to France’s strict secularism laws.
Sifan Hassan vs France’s secular laïcité law
French society was founded upon the principles of liberté, égalité, and fraternité (liberty, equality and fraternity) in the aftermath of the seminal French Revolution.
And as France wanted to reduce the influence of the Catholic Church on its society, it also adopted laws relating to laïcité, which roughly translates into English as ‘secularism’. In today’s era, these laws are enshrined in the French constitution itself.
ALSO READ: Paris 2024 deep dive: Why is the hijab ban only applicable for French athletes?
Any religious sign or symbol is prohibited in public places and offices, with these laws applying on even school children studying in publicly-funded schools.
Laïcité is a controversial subject of discussion in French social circles to this day (Image source: Getty Images)
And last September, French sports minister Amelie Oudea-Castera confirmed that laïcité would apply to the French Olympic contingent, as it was representing and funded by the French public.
Thus, no Muslim Frenchwoman part of France’s Olympic contingent was allowed to wear the hijab for the duration of the Games, even though female Muslim athletes from other countries could wear it without any hindrance.
One such athlete, a refugee from Ethiopia representing the Netherlands, ended up winning gold at the last sporting event of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Therefore in a sense, it felt like poetic justice when Hassan climbed the podium to collect her medal.
Past precedent and looking towards the future
When one looks back to reflect just how far women have come on the road to equality with men, there are innumerable examples littered across the pages of sporting history where women defied societal expectations, and etched their names in the records of glory.
One particular example that readily comes to mind is Hassan’s compatriot Fanny Blankers-Koen at the London 1948 Olympic Games. Dubbed ‘The Flying Housewife’ by international media, Blankers-Koen won four gold medals on her way to shattering the glass ceiling in the post-Second World War world.
Fanny Blankers-Koen on her way to winning the 80m hurdles race at London 1948 (Image source: Getty Images)
Unfortunately, despite her stellar achievements on the racing track, she faced a lot of sexism off it. One reporter wrote that she ran “like she was chasing the kids out of the pantry”, while another wrote that she “fled through her trial heats as though racing to the kitchen to rescue a batch of burning biscuits.”
Contrary to contemporaneous news articles at the time, history will remember her as the person who was voted female athlete of the 20th century by World Athletics (then known as the International Association of Athletics Federations).
Similarly, the Paris 2024 Olympic Games started with the shadow of the hijab ban on French athletes but came to a poetic conclusion with a refugee female athlete from Africa wearing a hijab while receiving her gold medal in the last competitive event of the Games.
A timely reminder to people occupying the French halls of power that items of clothing do not matter when it comes to displaying sporting brilliance at the grandest stage of them all.
That to truly liberate women and achieve gender equality in the sporting arena for one-half of humanity, a host country should not indulge in banning its own female athletes from wearing or not wearing something.
French President Emmanuel Macron outside the Elysee presidential palace (Image source: Getty Images)
And with Hassan donning the hijab after winning the women’s marathon, women all across the world were handed a new ray of hope on the path to achieving actual parity with their male counterparts, be it in the sporting world or other walks of life.
But even as the world celebrates Hassan’s achievements and that of countless other women athletes in the realm of sport, one should note, quite pragmatically, that the hijab ban imposed on French athletes wasn’t the first and won’t be the last attempt from the patriarchal world to somehow control women’s agency in sport and elsewhere.
