A group of veiled girls attending the conference

By Hadi Yahmid, IOL Correspondent

PARIS, April 13 (IslamOnline.net) – It would not be a misnomer to describe this year’s conference of the Union of French Islamic Organizations (UOIF), Paris-le-Bourget, as Europe's biggest gathering for hijab-donned women.

Up to 50,000 veiled women sent their unmistakable message through the three-day annual conference, concluded Monday, April 12, which also saw a fund-raising campaign to build private schools for Muslim students, who refuse to take off their hijabs.

The sea of hijabs seemed like a silent protest at the Senate approval last month of a controversial bill banning hijab and religious insignia in state schools.

"I'm really optimistic about what I have seen in the Bourget conference," Malika Dief, known as the doyen of female Muslim preachers in France, told IslamOnline.net.

"I'm sure that the number [of the veiled who visited the conference] exceeded 50,000," added Dief, who lectured Sunday, April 11, about the behavior of Muslim women and girls in Western societies.

Dief, who converted to Islam 35 years ago, said the large gathering of veiled Muslim women this year was a show of solidarity in view of the anti-hijab drive in France and other European countries.

Dubbing 2003 as the anti-hijab year, she underlined the need to hold such gatherings at least once a year.

"The most important thing now is that we should stand by those young [veiled] students, who came in droves to this year's conference."

Some 30,000 French Muslim women, many of them wearing hijab, and men took to the streets of Paris Saturday, January 17, to mark the world hijab day and protest the hijab ban.

Dressing Styles

A pavilion of a Muslim organization participating in the conference

The dressing styles of Muslim women showing up for exhibitions held on the sidelines of the conference varied from those wearing the standard hijab, to those using bandannas to others wearing things similar to the Afghan chadors.

Iqbal Al-Sahli, a saleswoman, said the choice differs according to the age group and religious backgrounds.

She noted that a majority of Muslim girls opt for stylish and colorful hijabs while few stick to all-enveloping Afghan-style dresses.

Unveiled Muslim women have also took part in the event, but did not drew the attention of Western media, since hijab-clad women have become a "fantasme" as put by French researcher Vincent Gisiere in his Sunday lecture on Islamophobia.

This year conference was abundant with signs indicating a rising Francophonic Islam in the strictly secular European country.

The UOIF is the biggest Muslim body in France and groups about 200 societies.

It was founded in 1983 by a cohort of Moroccan immigrants and came to prominence in the late 1980s during protests against hijab ban.

France has a population of about six million Muslims, the biggest Muslim community in Europe.