If passed by France's National Assembly, the new legislation will ban under-18s from wearing the head covering in public.
By Sarah Haque
(VICE) Near the end of her first year of medical school in Marseille in 2017, Nadia went in for a routine check-up before starting rotations at the hospital. The nurse examining her stared openly, her face twisted into a scowl. When she jotted down Nadia’s weight, she deducted two kilos from the reading on the scale, “because of the heavy clothes”. Nadia peered down at her outfit: a blazer and skirt. But she knew what she really meant. It was the hijab, an ivory pashmina wrapped intricately around her face, that was an affront.
It was only the start of a slew of abuse. The nurse gestured to her voile, French for veil or scarf, and said: “Let your hair breath, it will fall out from wearing that all the time”. She tutted at Nadia, a frequent blood donor, about a vitamin D deficiency she did not have and told to “get out of the house more, I know that in your culture women stay locked in all day long”. When she left, Nadia barely resisted the urge to cry.