Officials say banning the burkini – worn mostly by Muslim women – is a response to growing terror concerns and heightened tensions after a series of terror attacks.
Advertisement
Many such incidents have been occurring regularly after the ban on the burkini.
Lawyer Patrice Spinosi, representing the Human Rights League, told reporters in Paris that women who have already received fines can protest against them based on Friday’s decision.
Despite the court victory, the debate was unlikely to go away.
The attempts to ban burqinis, the judges ruled, insulted “fundamental freedoms” such as the “freedom of conscience and personal liberty”.
Burkini critics say the swimwear is a provocative symbol and permitting it on beaches accords radical Islamism a creeping influence on French society. The burkini, he wrote, “is the affirmation of political Islam in the public space”.
In a judgment expected to set a precedent, the State Council ruled that local authorities could restrict individual liberties only if wearing the Islamic swimsuit was a “proven risk” to public order.
The Council of State ruled that: “The emotion and concerns arising from the terrorist attacks, notably the one perpetrated in Nice on July 14, can not suffice to justify in law the contested prohibition measure”. CCIF was a party to the lawsuit in Villeneuve-Loubet. “Today all the ordinances taken should conform to the decision of the Council of State”.
“It took her two days to realise this happened to her, and she was really in shock because of what happened and she wants to keep very quiet and low profile and doesn’t want any interaction with the media”, said Muhammad, who is in contact with the woman’s family.
The head of the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, the other group that appealed to the top court, hailed the decision but lamented that the crackdown “will remain engraved in the history of our country”.
“One can not take back the harm which was caused, humiliations that were provoked”, Marwan Muhammad told reporters outside the court. The city’s ban states that the burkini, “overtly manifests adherence to a religion at a time when France and places of worship are the target of terrorist attacks”.
The ban, which spread to more than a dozen coastal towns, had exposed cracks within the Socialist government’s unity as Prime Minister Manuel Valls defended it on August 25 while some ministers criticized it. She even designed a burkini for celebrity chef Nigella Lawson, who she says wanted the outfit to protect her skin from the sun.
Earlier in the week he had said “it’s about respecting the dignity of people; it’s about respecting the dignity of women”.
The ruling has suspended the anti-burkini law in Villeneuve-Loubet but the mayor of Sisco, in northern Corsica, said he would not lift his own ban. He denounced a “rampant Islamization” in the country and said that, with Friday’s ruling, “they’ve gained a small additional step”.
For Christian Estrosi, an outspoken supporter of the burkini ban who runs the Provence-Alpes Cte d’Azur regional council, where a significant number of the bans were passed, Friday’s decision was a contradiction of precisely those Republican values. But de facto the town decrees are hollow because burkini fines can be contested. “Here the tension is very, very, very high and I won’t withdraw it”, Ange-Pierre Vivoni said on BFM-TV.
Far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen said the battle is not over.
Advertisement
Villeneuve-Loubet’s mayor, Lionnel Luca, responding to the ruling, said: “We need to decide if we want a smiley, friendly version of sharia law on our beaches or if we want the rules of the [French] Republic to be implemented”.
