PARIS, Dec 19: A labour court here on Wednesday handed down a decision supporting a French Muslim woman’s bid to wear the hijab at her place of employment, and ordering the company to reimburse her salary.

The woman, Dallila Tahri, said she hoped that the decision, just rendered by a special labour court, “would encourage other Islamic women to enter the workplace, and do so wearing their veils.”

She had just been notified of the decision by the Prud’hommes Labour Court that the Teleperformance tele-marketing firm that had fired her earlier this year had done so illegally and that it was being ordered to reinstate her within a week and reimburse her salary going back to August 2002

Maitre Grumbach, her attorney, said that the decision was significant, and indeed could become a landmark ruling, but, even more so, demonstrated quite eloquently that if Dallila was fired it was largely as a result of the “atmosphere of suspicion” in which French Muslim have had to live since September 11, 2001.

“The Islamic veil (hijab) had been largely accepted by companies before September 11, but suddenly,” he noted, “it was as if the attacks on the United States had allowed them to call all of that into question.” He hopes, as does Dallila, that French companies will now no longer make it difficult for Muslim women to wear the veil at their places of work, indeed that they will make a greater effort at hiring them, for September 11 has also seen French companies seemingly cringe at employing Muslim personnel.