(AFP) Retailer Decathlon Tuesday cancelled plans to sell a sports version of the hijab Muslim headscarf in France, following an outcry.
“We are effectively taking the decision to not sell this product in France for now,” Decathlon official Xavier Rivoire told the RTL broadcaster, despite defending to AFP earlier the company’s goal to “make sport accessible to all women in the world.”
The controversy is the latest in France over face- and body-covering garments worn by Muslim women which many in the secular country perceive as instruments of women’s subjugation.
Others argue that they allow Muslim women to be an active part of broader society.
