‘Here I found respect for who I am’: the French citizens who choose to leave

Even as she climbed up the corporate ladder in France, Ophélie Rizki’s after-work routine remained unchanged. Each evening as she got into her car to drive home, she would make a beeline for her headscarf, feeling herself slowly becoming whole again as she covered her hair.

She had never been explicitly told that she couldn’t wear her hijab at work, nor had she asked. But as politicians in France continued to spar over headscarves, two decades after parliament voted to ban them in school, she worried about the impact that choosing to keep her hair covered would have on her career. “You don’t ask the question, you know it’s not something you can do,” she said.

In 2019, when the opportunity came up to move to Australia, she and her family seized it. Hints of how their lives might change came soon after, from the glimpses of headscarves worn by some of the staff in Sydney airport, to the two contestants on Amazing Race Australia who wore hijabs. “We had been raised in a country where the hijab is erased from everything,” said Rizki. “But it feels so good to live in a society where you can be yourself.”

In recent years, scores of highly qualified French citizens, both practising Muslims and those from a Muslim background, have left France in a phenomenon researchers describe as a silent flight.

Insight into this cohort came from a survey to which 1,074 people responded. When asked why they had moved to countries such as the UK, the United Arab Emirates and Canada, 71% said their decision had been prompted by a desire to face less racism and discrimination. Another 65% said they wanted to live more peacefully with their religion.

While French law bars statistics on race, origins or religion, it is impossible to say how many Muslims have left France. The actual number could be as high as tens of thousands, said Olivier Esteves, a professor at the University of Lille and one of the researchers behind France, you love it but leave it, a recently published book based on the survey and in-depth interviews with more than 100 people.

“France is literally shooting itself in the foot,” said Esteves. “A substantial minority among them were telling me straight away in interviews: ‘You know my name is Mohammed, but I’m not Muslim. I drink alcohol, I party, but I have the wrong face, the wrong name. My CV, it doesn’t work on the French job market.’”

As France hurtles towards parliamentary elections in which the far right could lead government, Esteves is among those sounding the alarm that this brain drain could intensify. Polls suggest the far-right, anti-immigrant National Rally, which has expressed support for banning headscarves in public places and barring dual nationals from certain state jobs, is on course to win the election but expected to fall short of a majority.

“It’s going to potentially give the far right a field day in terms of the daily experience of Muslims, who already get insulted, abused and are discriminated against,” said Esteves. It would “inevitably” lead to more Muslims leaving, he added.

“The feeling of Muslims in France right now is really growing: they don’t feel like they’re in their home country, no matter how attached to France they may be. It’s a feeling of estrangement and alienation.”

The Guardian spoke to half a dozen people, all of whom were raised in France and now live abroad. While many noted that their new homes were far from perfect, they saw themselves as having left behind a hostile political and media discourse that had marked their lives and limited their access to jobs and housing in France.

The long reach of this discrimination was laid bare by those who said that after a lifetime of feeling they could never be French enough, they had shed these stereotypes when they moved abroad, said Esteves.

“Many of the people we talk to, they’re telling us that when I arrived in Belgium or in Germany or Canada or the UK, I’m not an Arab any more. I’m French. People see me as French,” said Esteves.

The findings hinted at a singular discrimination-based exodus taking place, said Esteves. “The first headscarf scandal, which caused a furore in France, was back in 1989,” he said. “So this is where we point to a sort of French exception, in terms of the degree of intensity of lawmaking, leading to a vicious circle where you get more and more laws all the time.”

In 2004, the French parliament voted to ban “conspicuous” religious symbols in state schools, in a move widely seen as targeting headscarves. Successive moves have cracked down on headscarves in sport, burkinis in public pools and beaches, and abayas, the long flowing dresses worn by some Muslim women, in schools.

“Secularism is like dog-whistle politics,” said Esteves. “It’s dog-whistle politics to talk about Muslims. Instead of sounding like you are against Muslims, you deliver a message in favour of something.”

A handful of studies have offered insight into the impacts of this discourse; a 2021 government report suggested that job applicants with Arab names were 32% less likely to be called in for interview, while academics have documented the frequency with which French media offer up negative portrayals of Islam and how those with north African-sounding names are less likely to receive responses to inquiries about housing.

Few in France seem to realise this discrimination puts people in an impossible bind, forcing them to choose whether to accept a life curtailed by racism or leave behind everything they know, said one woman who had moved to central Canada nearly two decades ago after being born and raised in southern France. She asked that her name not be published to protect her job.

“It’s not easy,” she said. “I love France. I left my family, my lifelong friends. My kids didn’t get to grow up with their grandparents. We sacrificed so much.”

In turn, however, she had found a world of opportunity abroad. “My husband and I work for the public sector, which would be unfathomable if I was in France, with my hijab,” she said, citing laws that bar public sector employees in France from wearing religious symbols.

“I’m an engineer. But I think the best job I could have in France with my hijab is probably at a halal butcher, working as a cashier. Here there is nothing that prevents me as a hijabi from moving up the ladder.”

The sentiment was echoed by Fatiha Zeghir, who said her career flourished after she moved to London 11 years ago. “I’ve never felt so free,” she said. “Here I found respect for who I am. I could be whoever I wanted to be, I wasn’t just stuck being the Arab girl.”

It was a welcome change from her experience of growing up on the outskirts of Paris. “In France I was the Algerian girl and they were trying to make me more French,” she said. “Even though I spoke perfect French … it was encouraged that I have a glass of wine and lose my curls, because curls are too exotic.”

Mohamed Imoussaine, originally from Strasbourg, made the move to Montreal in 2020. He and his wife, who both have master’s degrees in economics from French universities, swiftly found more opportunity in Canada than they ever had in France.

“It’s crazy. I don’t know how much the French state spent on my education, from nursery school to my master’s,” he said. “But it’s a pity for the French state that there was no return, so to speak, on their investment and that in the end, another country is benefiting from my education.”

The six people who spoke to the Guardian said they had no plans to return to France, hinting at a brain drain that showed no sign of reversal.

For Rizki, the question of whether to return to France from Australia was a complicated one. While being thousands of miles away from family and loved ones had been tremendously difficult, Rizki was reluctant to return to a life where she had felt the need to conceal part of her identity.

“Having two young girls, I just couldn’t. I can’t have my girls going through that,” she said. “I don’t know if they will want to wear the hijab or not – I’ll certainly not force them – but I want them to have the choice. And to be themselves and whatever they want to be.”