French Muslim Leader: Veil Debate Has Become ’Hysterical’ in France

"Today, unfortunately, the issue of the veil has become a completely hysterical issue in France. And I believe that when a woman is a believer, she must also take into account the society in which she lives," explains the guest of RTL. According to him, there is a principle that has existed for 14 centuries in Islam, it is the notion of necessity, the notion of constraint. "That is to say that when a woman cannot, for various reasons, wear a headscarf, she must remove it. This does not mean that she will lose her faith and that she is no longer Muslim," Chems-eddine Mohamed Hafiz further explains.

And he launches: "Look, in Muslim countries today, are there women who wear the veil when they compete in sports? No." The rector thus refers to the French basketball player, excluded from a competition in northern France for refusing to remove her hijab.