Are you better protected against Islamophobia in France when, along with your veil, you wear a lawyer's robe, a nurse's coat or have the status of a journalist or a teacher?

For Slim Ben Achour, a lawyer at the Paris Court of Appeal, the answer is no.

“Women with higher levels of education are more visible and therefore more victims of racism,” he told Middle East Eye.

A specialist in equality and non-discrimination issues, Ben Achour has defended several Muslim women, including fellow lawyers, who were prevented from working or stigmatised in the workplace because of their headscarves.

One of his recent cases involves a business lawyer, Youssra Marzouq, who was targeted by Islamophobic attacks after a television report in November 2025 in which she appeared wearing a headscarf.

“That a lawyer, a legal professional, is being attacked after simply giving an interview while wearing a headscarf in a perfectly legal setting shows that even professional and institutional integration is no shield,” Nicolas Cadene, a jurist and former general rapporteur of the Observatory of Secularism, an advisory body dissolved in 2021 by the government after being judged to be too lenient towards "Islamism", told MEE.

“These attacks don’t target behaviour or words; they target appearance. That’s the very definition of racism,” he added.