French Sports Minister confirms country’s athletes will not wear veil during Paris 2024 Olympics

French Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra has confirmed the country’s athletes will not wear the veil during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Oudéa-Castéra confirmed the hosts’ stance on the subject during an interview with French political show Dimanche en Politique.

"We have, thanks to a recent decision of the Council of State, expressed very clearly with the Prime Minister our attachment to a regime of strict secularism," Oudéa-Castéra said.

"This means the prohibition of any form of proselytism, the absolute neutrality of public service.

"The representatives of our delegations in our French teams will not wear the veil."

Wearing the veil is set to remain banned during football matches in France, an approach that goes against a call from a collective of Muslim women, who call themselves "Les Hijabeuses."

FIFA allows players to wear the veil, with Morocco’s Nouhaila Benzina the first player wearing a veil to participate at a FIFA Women’s World Cup earlier this year.

Nouhaila Benzina of Morocco was the first player wearing a veil to play in the FIFA Women's World Cup earlier this year ©Getty Images

"The International Olympic Committee, which governs these rules of participation, is following a logic which consists of understanding the wearing of the veil not as a religious factor but as a cultural factor," Oudéa-Castéra added.

"It is based on the provisions of International Federations which are not all the same in this area. There will be heterogeneity between sports."

In 2019, French feminist group the International League for Women’s Rights called on Paris 2024 organisers to ban the veil and other items of Islamic clothing during the Olympics and Paralympics.

At Rio 2016, fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad became the first Muslim American woman to wear a veil while competing for the United States in the Olympics, earning a bronze in the team sabre.

American-born and raised Sarah Attar ran in the 2012 Olympic Games in London with her hair covered, in keeping with a request that she do so to respect Islamic law by Saudi Arabia, for whom she ran on the basis of her father having been born in Saudi Arabia.

Last month France banned the wearing of the abaya dress by girls at schools, while Muslim women are already banned from wearing the veil in public institutions such as Government offices, schools and universities.