The controversy around the wearing of the veil in sport swells. Several ministers who expressed divergent positions on the subject were summoned to Matignon this Tuesday by François Bayrou.
The wearing of the veil in the sporting speakers ignites the political scene. Tuesday, March 18, 2025, Prime Minister François Bayrou summoned a meeting with several big fish from the executive, such as the Minister of National Education Elisabeth Borne, that of the interior Bruno Retailleau, the Minister of Sports Marie Barsacq or that responsible for Equality, Aurore Bergé. Proof of the deleterious climate, the Keeper of the Seals Gérald Darmanin – also invited to this interview – simply threatened to resign if the government yielded on this ground.
If the subject is highly flammable, it is based on very specific texts.Secularism first implies the separation of the State and religious organizations. This induces an absolute neutrality of the State, local authorities and public services, “not of its users”, it is said on Gouv info. In addition, secularism “guarantees the free exercise of cults and freedom of religion, but also freedom vis-à-vis religion: no one can be forced to respect dogmas or religious prescriptions”, can also be read.
Currently, it is mainly about wearing the veil in sport that the cloth burns between the various political parties and within the presidential majority. Last February, a bill initiated by the Republicans and voted in the Senate aimed at banning the veil in sports competitions set fire to the powder. Faced with this text, the Minister of Sports warned of “confusions” and “amalgams” between wearing the veil and radicalization in the sports universe.
The prohibition“In the name of secularism is absurd”
In this context, the lawyer and former secretary general of the Observatory of Secularism, Nicolas Cadène, tries to bring clarity on a subject that requires so much. In the columns of The crosshe published a platform on secularism in sport last January. According to him, the ban on the wearing of a religious sign in sport “in the name of secularism is absurd, because secularism only supposes neutrality of those who represent public administration, to guarantee the equality of service for all, whatever their convictions”.
A point shared byThe former prime minister and candidate for the presidential election of 2027, Edouard Philippe: “Today, a general and absolute ban on the port of the veil in sport would be contrary to what secularism in France,” he said at the microphone ofEurope 1. According to him, two pillars constitute secularism in France: the absolute neutrality of holders of public authority and the freedom of citizens to practice and demonstrate their worship. A speech very close to the formulation of the official website of the government which evokes him a “right to freedom of expression”, “beliefs or convictions” and “the free exercise of cults and freedom of religion”.
Nicolas Cadène takes a specific example to illustrate his point. “Public sports equipment cannot be used as a prayer room, since it cannot have a cult destination, the administration being separated from cults”. Also, “municipalities can already prohibit any jersey in their swimming pools which poses a problem of hygiene, safety or public order. On these criteria, the burkini as a too large jersey is already there, with some exceptions, prohibited”, he continues.
The parliamentary proposals are for the specialist, “contrary to secularism when they impose a general and absolute ban, in fact, of any accessory visible to any believing sportsman, for any competition”. It is important to recall that prohibitions of religious signs can be applied in certain sports as soon as they are objectively based on the regulatory hold of the sport in question or that it relates to hygiene, but in no case on secularism, as the Council of State has already recalled. In other words, religious neutrality in sport already applies but it is not based on secularism, rather on public order, “the rules of the game” or “technical regulations”, abounds Nicolas Cadène, always in the newspaper La Croix. As a reminder, secularism is by no means a conviction, but the principle which allows them all, as long as the public order is respected.