Muslim women wearing the hijab France 2020, by migration status and region of origin

This statistic represents the proportion of French Muslim women wearing a headscarf in 2008-2009 and in 2019-2020. According to the source, in 2020, 37 percent of Muslim women who were immigrants from North Africa but living in France, wore a headscarf.

The different types of Islamic headwears

Islam recommends that its followers adopt modest behavior. Thus, women are invited to maintain their modesty by dressing in such a way as to preserve their privacy from the eyes of men, particularly by wearing a veil to cover their hair. However, according to the Quran, wearing a headscarf is not mandatory for Muslim women, who remain free to wear them or not.
There are several types of veils with different levels of coverage.
While it initially designates all types of veil, the "hijab" is now mainly used to refer to a scarf that covers the head and hair, but not the face.
Uncommon in France, the “niqab” masks the entire face apart from the eyes and is often worn with a black garment covering the entire body, including the hands.
The “burqa” is a garment, often blue, mainly worn in Afghanistan, which covers the entire woman's body leaving an opening for the eyes, which are protected by a sheer layer. Its use was imposed by the Taliban in the late 1990s.
Other veils exist among different Muslim communities of the world, like the "chador", mostly worn in Iran.
In France, as in other European countries, full-face veils (notably the "niqab" and the "burqa") are prohibited, although very minor.

Wearing a headscarf in Western societies

The way Muslim women dress is often a matter of tension and discussion. After the first controversy around the burkini in 2016, the issue of wearing the veil in certain French public places was raised again in 2019 during a school trip to a Regional Council, when a chaperone of the group was asked by an elected representative to take off her "hijab". Some people sometimes tend to confuse the use of Islamic headwear with extremist religious movements. In general, the French are rather opposed to women wearing the veil in public places.