The UN has issued a strong statement saying that it is opposed to most dress codes for women in any circumstances after France barred its Olympic athletes from wearing the hijab at the 2024 Paris  Olympic Games

“No one should tell a woman what she should or should not wear,” said UN Rights Office spokesperson Marta Hurtado in Geneva.

Hurtado’s remark came after France’s sports minister stated that athletes will be prohibited from wearing headscarves at the Olympic Games due to the country’s secularism standards.

Amelie Oudea-Castera, France’s Sports Minister, stated again on Sunday that the government is opposed to “any display of religious symbols during sporting events.”

“The France team will not wear the headscarf.”

Hurtado did not explicitly address France’s attitude.

Hurtado, on the other hand, emphasized that discriminatory behaviors were prohibited under the 1979 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

“Any state party to the convention is required to amend.”

Hurtado described “social or cultural patterns based on the idea of the inferiority or superiority of either sexes.”

“Discriminatory practices against a group can have harmful consequences,” she went on to say.

“That is why restrictions on expressions of religions or beliefs, such as attire choices, are only acceptable under really specific circumstances,” she went on to say.

She defined this as situations “that address legitimate concerns of public safety, public order, public health, or morals in a necessary and proportionate manner.”

In the interest of secularism, French laws restrict the wearing of “ostentatious” religious symbols in some circumstances, such as state schools and by civil officials.

In 2010, full-face coverings were made illegal.

The French Council of State maintained a prohibition on female football players wearing shorts in June.