In France, a new law could seriously restrict women's rights to wear headscarves in public, and there are fears that it will entrench Islamophobia. In October 2020, President Emmanuel Macron laid out the vision behind a new, deeply controversial bill. The government claimed a minority of France's estimated 6 million Muslims were at risk of forming a "counter-society" and the bill was designed to tackle the dangers of this "Islamist separatism". It is meant to safeguard republican values, but critics, including Amnesty International, have pointed out that it will gravely inhibit freedom of association and expression, and increase discrimination. The new law will severely affect the construction of mosques, and give more discretion to local authorities to close local associations deemed in conflict with "Republican principles", a term often wielded against Muslims specifically. But one of the most controversial points is extending the ban on women wearing headscarves in public sector roles, to private organisations that provide a public service. Further amendments were tabled prohibiting full-length swimsuits ("burkinis"), girls under 18 from wearing the hijab in public, and mothers from wearing hijabs on their children's school trips. These were subsequently overturned, but the stigma they legitimise lives on. On 30th July 2021 the bill was passed by the National Assembly of the French parliament. Its effects have already been felt by an embattled minority of French women who have voiced their experiences of institutional Islamophobia, and their fears for the future. [...] "We have been forced into an enclave and the only way we can challenge things domestically is through international support. In France, anyone who speaks up for Muslim rights is labelled an 'islamo-leftist' and undermined. Even the government commission on laïcité [secularism] was dismantled because it objected to the way laïcité was being wielded. We are told we don't integrate, but we are gradually being pushed out of public life completely." Hence this is a very bad law, since it restricts women's rights to wear headscarves in public, and would entrench Islamophobia and gravely violate freedom of religion, association and expression - as well as marginalize and discriminate women in France who are of Muslim faith. Therefore the French government should revoke this very bad law, so that the flame of freedom and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) can be upheld in France.