A deadly shooting and a hijab ban: two faces of French racial division

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 police during a traffic check last week.

As cars burned and barricades went up in her neighborhood over the shooting, she was notified by the country’s top administrative court that she could not play France’s most popular sport – football – while wearing her hijab. On Thursday, the Conseil d’Etat upheld the French Football Federation’s ban on the wearing of obvious religious symbols, in line with the country’s fundamental principle of laïcité, or secularism.

The decision caused a storm of feelings in Mrs. Diakité – shock, anger, disappointment. “I feel betrayed by the country, which is supposedly the land of human rights,” said 25-year-old Ms Diakité, who stopped playing football in a club team last season because of the rule. “I don’t feel safe because they don’t accept who I am.”

The timing of the pronunciation 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 fraught debate about the visibility of Islam in French society. But both touch on long-simmering issues of identity and inclusion in France.

The police shooting was initially explained in the French news media as self-defense. Anonymous police sources claimed Nahel was shot after plowing his car into officers to evade a traffic stop. But video emerged from a bystander, appearing to show him being shot by an officer from the side of the car as he drove away.

Although a French citizen, Nahel was of Algerian and Moroccan descent. Many minorities living in the country’s poorer suburbs believe that police would never have shot a young white man living in an affluent area of ​​Paris, even if he had a history of minor traffic violations, like Nahel.

“We are being judged twice,” said Kader Mahjoubi, 47, who was among the thousands in attendance a wake march for Nahel last week. “You always have to justify yourself.”

An official last week in President Emmanuel Macron’s office flatly rejected the idea that there were two Frances with different conditions and treatments. As for the police, the official rejected the idea of ​​institutional bias.

“It was the act of one man, not the actions of the police,” said the official, who could not be publicly identified in accordance with French rules, adding: “Today’s police are very mixed, very diverse, a reflection of France.”

In recent years, studies have highlighted how widespread racial discrimination is in France, particularly among the police. 2017, an investigation by France’s civil liberties ombudsman, the Défenseur des Droits, found that “young men perceived as black or Arab” were 20 times more likely to be subject to police identity checks compared to the rest of the population.

Last week, the spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said exclaimed France to “seriously address the deep problems of racism and discrimination in law enforcement”.

The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs mentioned the accusation “completely baseless” and said that the French police “resolutely fight against racism and all forms of discrimination.”

At the same time, the attitude of many French people has hardened following a series of horrific terrorist attacks since 2015.

Discussion of race is deeply taboo in France, as it goes against the republic’s original ideals that all people have the same universal rights and should be treated equally. Today, it’s believed that just talking about racism exacerbates the problem, says Julien Talpin, a sociologist at the National Center for Scientific Research who studies discrimination in the French suburbs.

“It’s a bit of an odd proposition that the best way to solve the problem is not to talk about it,” he said, “but that’s actually the dominant consensus in French society.”

The result is that many minorities feel doubly disadvantaged.

“We are discriminated against because of our race,” said Mr. Talpin, recounting what he heard from his study’s subjects. “And then, on top of that, the problem is denied, it couldn’t exist.”

Still, many suburban residents are “quietly finding their place in France,” he said Fabien Truong, a sociologist. For them, “the Republican promise” of equality and inclusion has largely worked, as they get higher education, better jobs, move out of the suburbs and feel part and parcel of the mainstream, he said.

Others regularly feel attacked and spend nights in jail for not carrying their ID. Those residents, he said, most of them teenagers, internalize a message of illegitimacy at a particularly tender time of emotional development, as they build their sense of self.

“It is compulsory in France, but no one carries their ID. If you are white and live in the center of Paris, and you go to buy your baguette, you don’t carry your ID with you,” says Truong, a professor at Université Paris 8. “You could be arrested, but you know that you won’t be. But those guys, they could be and they know other people won’t.”

Mr. Truong has studied the trajectories and experiences of about 20 of his former high school students in Seine-Saint-Denis, the sprawling Paris suburb where riots broke out in 2005 after two teenage boys were electrocuted while being chased by police.

What some tell him, he said, is: “We feel French. We were born here. But we are not Franco-French.”

He sees parallels between last week’s riots and the court ruling: both have to do with the control of young, marginalized people in public spaces who are perceived as a threat.

In theory, the the country’s secularismcreated after the 1789 Revolution to keep the Roman Catholic Church out of state affairs, it is intended to ensure that the state does not promote any religion and that everyone is free to practice any faith.

Critics say it has sometimes been used as a weapon to keep Muslims, especially women wearing headscarves, out of public life.

It was on the basis of the principle of neutrality that the French football federation banned players from taking part in matches while wearing hijabs or other religious symbols.

A group of young Muslim players from different teams, calling themselves Les Hijabuses, or the hijab wearers, launched a legal challenge against the rule in 2021, arguing that it was discriminatory and barred Muslim women from sports.

The expert adviser to the country’s highest administrative court agreed with them last week, noting that football is full of religious and political symbols, such as the many players who customarily make a cross before entering the field.

Still, the court ruled otherwise, stating that the federation had the right to introduce the ban “to ensure the proper functioning of public services and the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”

The ruling went further and said that not only neutrality, but also the proper conduct of matches, without confrontations and clashes, was at stake.

In France, many in the mainstream see the Islamic headscarf as an archaic symbol of women’s oppression at best, and as a sign of failed integration and religious radicalism at worst. The mere sight of a hijab can generate tensions.

The country’s interior minister, Gerald Darmanin, who has led the government’s fight to eradicate Islamist institutions deemed “separatist” across the country, a French radio station last week that if women footballers were allowed to wear a hijab it would be a “very significant blow” to France’s “Republican contract”.

“When you play football,” said Mr. Darmanin, “you shouldn’t know your opponents’ religion.”

Ms. Diakité, who now only plays with fellow members of Les Hijabeuses for fun, suspected that the statement was based on political ideology and not on facts. If the court had come to speak to the players and club managers in the suburbs, she said, she would have learned that there has never been violence on the football pitch because of players wearing the hijab.

She had hoped for dialogue, connection and inclusion. Instead, she felt the opposite.

“We have French identity cards,” she said. “But we don’t feel completely at home. ”

Aida Alami contributed reporting from New York, and Aureline Breeden from Paris.