Villeneuve-la-Garenne (France) (AFP)

How to manage irruptions of religion in sport? Far from the controversy over the Decathlon hijab, the Minister of Sports Roxana Maracineanu on Wednesday sought to dispassionate the debate, with a guide to solutions for players in the field, who often do with the means at hand.

"A girl, whether veiled or not, it's not healthy that she locks herself at home" and abandons the sport, said the former swimmer of high level, in front of elected officials, officials of clubs and educators gathered in a sports center in Villeneuve-la-Garenne, in the northern suburbs of Paris.

Is the veil allowed in a gym? The burkini in a municipal pool? In both cases, only the reasons of hygiene or safety can make it possible to impose restrictions, recalls the guide presented by the minister, a small booklet of 60 pages co-written by his services and the Observatory of laïcité.

On the other hand, the request of a part of a team to make a prayer in the locker room before the match "is not acceptable". Beyond the exclusion it provokes for the other members of the team, "sporting venues (including changing rooms)" are often places managed by local authorities and must remain neutral.

Not so simple, for Sami Sellami, the president of the Access Football Club Villeneuve-la-Garenne, whose futsal team plays in the first division. "We have Brazilian players, very pious (...) If they do not do the prayer they lose the match," he scoffs. "It's not a problem (...) we allow it but if the coach has to talk, they listen to the coach," he continued during the round table.

- not every day -

The educators and leaders of sports sections are unanimous: the phenomenon exists, it is not recent, it is sometimes a problem, but "we do not face every day," tempers the administrative director of the AVG , omnisports club of the city, Joris Rougier.

In the athletics section, the bandana is advocated to convince teenage girls not to run veiled. More complicated, in the judo section, it happened that children refuse to greet the master of the discipline, because their religion forbids them to bow except in front of their god, explained a sports educator, Frédéric Lin. "By word, we manage to solve this little concern for interpretation ...", he explains. Without hiding that twice, "the parents withdrew their child".

Fasting, refusal to shake hands with an arbitrator - which exposes a captain to sanctions - or to totally undress in the locker room, the guide published by the ministry advocates "dialogue" when possible and recalls that the principle of neutrality imposed by the 1905 law applies only in public services.

"Laïcité is not neutrality for all You will not impose neutrality in a petanque club," said the president of the Observatory of secularism, Jean-Louis Bianco.

For the Minister, exclusion must only be a last resort. In late February, overwhelmed by criticism on social networks and in the political world, the French sports brand Decathlon had to give up marketing in France a "hijab" for the sport, already sold by the Nike equipment manufacturer. Roxana Maracineanu had already distinguished herself by saying that she wanted to "go and look for women, mothers, girls wherever they are and how they are" and "encourage them to practice sport ... a powerful lever for emancipation".

? 2019 AFP