Air France Female Cabin Crew Won't Cover Their Hair During Flights To Tehran

Several Air France hostesses refused to wear the veil when arriving in Iran's capital Tehran, to which the presumption of flights from Paris is scheduled for mid-April, said the National Union of Cabin Crew.

Regarding the reopening of direct flight between Paris and Tehran, Air France management distributed an internal memo which forcing the female cabin crew to wear 'pants for the duration of the flight, a loose jacket along with a headscarf covering the hair when disembarking', explained Christophe Pillet, a member of the the National Union of Cabin Crew.

Union leaders said the dress code was an attack on individual freedoms and insisted the measure had to be voluntary; Air France said the rules were not new and already applied to cabin crew during stop-overs in Saudi Arabia where hostesses were required to wear an abaya covering their body.

Air France will begin three daily fights to the Iranian capital on April 17th, eight years after they were stopped following the imposition of international sanctions against Tehran. These were lifted in January after Iran agreed to dismantle its nuclear programme.

Christophe Pillet said airline management had raised the possibility of penalties against staff who refused to follow the dress code. Francoise Redolfi, another union leader, told RFI radio, “They are forcing us to wear an ostentatious religious symbol. We have to let the girls choose what they want to wear. Those that don’t want to must be able to say they don’t want to work on those flights.”

She added: “Many female members of flight crews have told us that it’s out of the question they be obliged to wear headscarves. It’s not professional and they see it as an insult to their dignity.”

Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, women in Iran have been required to cover their heads. In France, headscarves are banned in schools and colleges and full veils are outlawed in public places. In a statement, Air France said: “Iranian law requires the wearing of a veil covering the hair in public places for all women present on its territory. This obligation is not required during the flight and is respected by all international airlines serving the Iranian Republic.” The company also stated that this obligation to cover the hair is not new, since it used to be applied in the past during flights to Saudi Arabia, and back then Air France was operating in Tehran too.

The row comes days after the French women’s rights minister, Laurence Rossignol, sparked controversy after comparing women who choose to wear the veil – including the burqa and niquab – to “American negroes who supported slavery”. Rossignol had been asked about fashion companies producing clothing for Muslim women, including Marks & Spencer, which has included ‘burkinis’ – all-covering swimming costumes - in its 2016 summer collection.

In 2010, Laurence Ferrari, one of France’s most famous television news presenters, caused outrage after wearing a headscarf to interview the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.