PARIS (AP) – France’s highest administrative authority is studying whether local bans on full-body burkini swimsuits are legal, amid growing concerns in the country and overseas about police forcing Muslim women to disrobe.
Advertisement
The bans have divided France’s government and society and drawn anger overseas, especially after images circulated online showing French police appearing to force one Muslim woman to take off her tunic.
The government also previously banned Muslim headscarves and other “conspicuous” religious symbols in French schools in February 2004.
He said the decision could set a precedent and topple other beach bans that have caused an worldwide furor.
Mayors had cited concern about public order after deadly Islamic extremist attacks this summer, and many officials have argued that burkinis oppress women.
The ruling by the Council of State on Friday specifically concerns a ban on the Muslim garment in the Riviera town of Villeneuve-Loubet, but the binding decision is expected to impact all the 30 or so French resort municipalities that have issued similar decrees.
Some 35 Muslim and non-Muslim women held a beach party demonstration outside the French embassy in London on Thursday, protesting against a ban on burkinis enforced in some coastal towns in France.
The Human Rights League and the Collective Against Islamophobia in France say the Villeneuve-Loubet mayor’s decree violates basic freedoms of dress, religious expression and movement.
“By overturning a discriminatory ban that is fuelled by and is fuelling prejudice and intolerance, today’s decision has drawn an important line in the sand”, said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty’s Europe director.
A decision on the substance is likely to take at least several more months or longer. “I find it quite chilling to see an image of a woman surrounded by men with guns being told to take her clothes off”.
He said the bans, by contrast, had stirred “disruption to public order”, driven by the sight of police issuing fines to Muslim women on some Riviera beaches. Among the demonstrators was 40-year-old Jenny Dawkins, a curate at All Saints Church in Peckham.
The Villeneuve-Loubet order bars from local beaches anyone whose garments don’t respect the principles of secularism, health and safety rules and good moral standards.
Before the ruling, Nice Deputy Mayor Rudy Salles said wearing a burkini is a provocation.
Advertisement
Religious clothing is particularly sensitive in France, where an unusually large part of the population has no religious affiliation, and where the first provision in the constitution says France is a “secular Republic”.
