France’s sports minister, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, said the country’s secularism principle and its rules against showing religious symbols during sporting events would be upheld for athletes competing for France. 

"That means the prohibition of any type of proselytising and the absolute neutrality of the public service. Which means that the representatives of our delegations, in our French teams, will not wear the headscarf," Oudea-Castera explained back in September. 

France has banned women and girls from wearing headscarves in public schools since 2004. As the Olympic host, France could not ban athletes from all around the world from wearing a headscarf, applying the rule only to their athletes instead.

The move was received with criticism worldwide, with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights commenting that no one should dictate what women should or should not wear. Several human rights organisations wrote a letter to French authorities asking them to reconsider, yet the rule still stands. Amnesty International stated this week that the ban on French women in hijab represents discriminatory double standards.

"Banning French athletes from competing with sports hijabs at the Olympic and Paralympic Games makes a mockery of claims that Paris 2024 is the first Gender Equal Olympics and lays bare the racist gender discrimination that underpins access to sport in France," Anna Blus, Amnesty International’s Women’s Rights Researcher in Europe said.

The rights group added that the decision has a devastating impact on the participation of women in sports and makes the games inaccessible. Several athletes spoke to Amnesty International about the decision ahead of the competition. Basketball player Helene Ba called it a "clear violation of the Olympic Charter" which states "The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Olympic Charter shall be secured without discrimination of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, sexual orientation, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status,” and said the Olympics was going to be a "shameful moment for France.”

Members of the Sport & Rights Alliance and Basket Pour Toutes published a letter written to the International Olympic Committee about the ban demanding the committee to publicly call on France to overturn its ban on athletes wearing the hijab in French sport, and at the Olympics. 

The IOC responded saying that the issue was beyond its remit. “Freedom of religion is interpreted in many different ways by sovereign states” and noted that in the Olympic Village and Olympic venues, IOC rules apply, meaning there are no restrictions on wearing the hijab.