Mama Diakité is a French citizen, raised in the suburbs of Paris by two immigrant parents, not far from where a 17-year-old boy was shot by the police during a traffic stop last week.
As cars burned and barricades went up in her neighborhood over the shooting, she got word from the country’s top administrative court that she could not play the most popular sport in France — soccer — while wearing her hijab. On Thursday, the Conseil d’Etat upheld the French Football Federation’s ban on wearing any obvious religious symbols, in keeping with the country’s bedrock principle of laïcité, or secularism.
The decision inspired a storm of feelings in Ms. Diakité — shock, anger, disappointment. “I feel betrayed by the country, which is supposed be the country of the rights of man,” said Ms. Diakité, 25, who stopped playing soccer on a club team this past season because of the rule. “I don’t feel safe because they don’t accept who I am.”
The timing of the ruling and of the unrest after the death of the young man, identified as Nahel M., was purely coincidental, and in many ways, the cases are different. One involved a fatal traffic stop that French officials have condemned; the other involved a charged debate on the visibility of Islam in French society. But both touch upon long-simmering issues of identity and inclusion in France. » | Catherine Porter, Reporting from Paris | Sunday, July 2, 2023
