Question 11948 — health establishments

Summary

Ms. Ersilia Soudais alerts the Minister of Health, Families, Autonomy and Disabled People about the hunt for “caps” in the hospital. On December 8, 2025, the newspaper Mediapart reported that a nurse at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital had been fired for wearing a cap, a common and widespread practice within hospital establishments. Seven years of impeccable practice, accompanied by unanimously laudatory assessments ("highly appreciated by her colleagues, doctors, but also management", "listening", "concerned about the quality of patient care"), were not enough to protect Madjouline from a real headgear hunt, revealing a barely veiled Islamophobia. Indeed, Blandine Chauvel, elected representative of the Sud santé union at Salpêtrière, indicates that people targeted by these calls to order are, on a recurring basis, Muslim caregivers or perceived as such. According to his statements, hundreds of health professionals would be affected by such practices. For the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital alone, twenty similar cases have already been identified, among which nine caregivers have been dismissed. Concurring testimonies also state facts identical to Marseille, Lyon or even Rennes. If the principle of secularism imposes an obligation of neutrality on public service agents, this naturally concerns the prohibition of the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols. However, the cap, a small cap commonly worn in the operating room, cannot, by its nature, be assimilated to either a religious sign or an ostentatious sign. In the same way that professionals wear charlottes in the catering sector, caregivers wear caps in hospitals, without this referring to any manifestation of religious proselytism. This was, among others, the case of Madjouline since 2018, which had, until then, never been the subject of the slightest observation. Several members of the nursing staff also attest to having never been summoned by management to wear a cap. How can we explain such differential treatment, if not by a clear desire to discriminate against Muslim women or those perceived as such? As a reminder, article 1 of the Constitution states that France “ensures equality before the law for all citizens without distinction of religion”. Furthermore, in a decision rendered in 2020, the Council of State affirmed that the mere wearing of a beard by a doctor cannot be considered, in itself, as the manifestation of a religious conviction. In this case, the management of the Saint-Denis hospital had demanded that a practitioner cut his beard, its length being deemed allegedly ostentatious. Even though successive governments have continued to weaken public hospitals through budget cuts, and nearly 15,000 nursing positions remain vacant in hospitals according to the French Hospital Federation, Islamophobia undermines the hospital institution. A pediatric department even had to close beds following the dismissal of two caregivers for simply wearing a cap. Such a situation illustrates how racism constitutes a poison for society, as decisions based on astonishing reasons can produce extremely serious effects on the continuity of public service and more broadly on the population. “What waste of time and energy! Losing staff for such reasons is totally crazy,” deplore doctors at the hospital, rightly so. So, faced with this situation that is both ludicrous and deeply unacceptable, she asks him what concrete answers she intends to provide so that healthcare workers are no longer threatened with dismissal because of their real or supposed religion.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

Timeline

1. 23 December 2025

   Question

   Source: DateQuestion

2. 28 April 2026

   Réponse

   Le ministère a été sollicité au sujet de la situation d'une agente de l'Assistance publique – Hôpitaux de Paris ayant fait l'objet d'une sanction disciplinaire à la suite de son refus de se conformer aux prescriptions relatives à la tenue professionnelle. À la suite d'un référé, la sanction de révocation initialement prononcée a été jugée disproportionnée et retirée. L'AP-HP a procédé à la réintégration de l'intéressée et lui a substitué une exclusion temporaire de fonctions de huit mois. Par ordonnance du 18 février 2026, le tribunal administratif de Paris, saisi en référé, a rejeté la requête de l'agente, estimant que cette sanction ne présentait pas, en l'état de l'instruction, de caractère manifestement disproportionné, dès lors que les faits reprochés constituaient un refus d'obéir à des instructions hiérarchiques légales et un manquement aux règles d'hygiène et de sécurité applicables dans l'établissement. Conformément à article 1er of the constitution et aux dispositions du code général de la fonction publique, les agents publics sont tenus, dans l'exercice de leurs fonctions, à une stricte obligation de neutralité, qui s'étend tant à leurs propos qu'à leur tenue et à leur comportement, y compris en l'absence de contact avec le public. Cette obligation est de jurisprudence constante du conseil d'État, notamment depuis la décision Mlle Marteaux (CE, 3 mai 2000). Si certains couvre-chefs ne constituent pas, par nature, des signes religieux, l'administration est fondée à apprécier, au cas par cas, si leur port revêt le caractère d'une manifestation de conviction religieuse, notamment lorsqu'il est permanent et effectué en dehors des situations où il est prescrit pour des motifs professionnels. Le Conseil d'État a admis qu'un objet neutre en soi puisse, dans certaines circonstances, être qualifié de signe religieux « par destination », et justifier une restriction au nom du principe de neutralité. En l'espèce, aucun motif religieux n'a été invoqué par l'agente pour justifier son refus d'obtempérer, ni retenu par l'employeur public dans la motivation de la sanction, laquelle repose exclusivement sur le non-respect de règles professionnelles en matière d'hygiène et de sécurité applicables à the whole ofs agents. La mesure prise n'était donc pas fondée sur la religion réelle ou supposée de l'intéressée.

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