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Third town bans ‘burkinis’ from beaches

Cannes is less than 20 miles from Nice.

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The ban on so-called burkinis, at the height of the French Riviera’s vacation season, comes as France remains on edge after deadly Islamic extremist attacks on nearby Nice and on a Catholic church in northwest France.

A local festival planned for August 15 has been cancelled, Vivoni said, but he told AFP this was “not for security reasons but because residents are not in the mood”. “I don’t think we should legislate the issue”.

‘The burkini is. a particular vision of the place of the woman. To critics, the garment is associated with an intolerant and sectarian strand of Islam.

And on July 26, a priest was killed in his church in northwestern France by two attackers who had proclaimed their allegiance to IS.

A mayor on the French island of Corsica has become the third nationwide to announce a ban on burkinis, following weekend clashes allegedly sparked by a row over the full-body Islamic swimsuit. Five people were injured, including a pregnant woman, according to local authorities.

The text of the municipal decree has been used, typically word for word, in bans elsewhere.

The French government has defended municipal bans on body-covering burkini swimwear but called on mayors to try and cool tensions between communities. Both of those mayors are members of the right-wing Republicans party, while Vivoni is a member of the left-wing Socialist party of French President François Hollande.

The Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) said it had filed an appeal against a court ruling upholding the bans, warning that they pose a threat to social peace and would only serve to divide France more. Behind the burkini, “there is the idea that, by nature, women are harlots, impure, they should be completely covered”. He further said “the Republic must defend itself” against any provocations.

“I support those who have taken measures [to ban burkinis]”.

But businessman Rachid Nekkaz has now stepped in to pay the penalties because he believes the ban is in breach of the women’s “religious and human rights”. Now five towns have banned the burkini while three others are in the process of doing so, the New York Times reports.

To the Prime Minister, which is expressed in Provence, the burkini “is the translation of a political project of against-company, based in particular on women’s subjugation”.

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He also added that “regulations on prescribing clothes can not be a solution”.

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