French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, for example, expressed his opposition to the burkini in nothing less than the language of human rights: the suit, he said, was a means of “enslavement”. He suggested he would take action when Parliament returns from its summer leave – but did not say what kind of law he would seek.
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None of the vaguely-worded by-laws have specifically mentioned “burkinis” – a slang term describing a range of modest swimsuits covering the hair and body – but several officials have made it clear that Muslim clothing is being specifically targeted.
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.
Ms Le Pen, who is running for president in the 2017 race, wrote in a statement that: “The burkini would obviously be part of it”.
Activists protest outside the French embassy, during the “wear what you want beach party” in London, Thursday, Aug. 25, 2016.
Welcoming the State Council’s ruling, Amnesty International said a line had been “drawn in the sand”.
The right-wing leader said that lawmakers must vote “as quickly as possible” on an extension of the 2004 law that banned Muslim headscarves and other ostentatious religious symbols in classrooms to include all public spaces. The group argued the bans contravened civil liberties.
Critics compared the enforcement of the ban to repression in Saudi Arabia and Iran, where religious police enforce strict dress codes on women.
Many such incidents have been occurring regularly after the ban on the burkini.
He told BFM-TV Friday: “Here the tension is very, very, very strong and I won’t withdraw it”.
France’s top administrative court has overturned a town burkini ban amid shock and anger worldwide after some Muslim women were ordered to remove body-concealing garments on French Riviera beaches.
It says local authorities can only restrict individual liberties if wearing the Islamic swimsuit is a “proven risk” to public order.
In recent weeks, around 30 French municipalities chose to ban access to public beaches “by anyone not wearing proper attire, which is respectful of good morality and the principle of secularism and not respectful of the rules of hygiene and bathing security”.
After the recent terrorist attack in Nice, when a Tunisian resident of the city killed 85 people and injured hundreds more in a truck attack on Bastille Day, the burkini ban, for many, assumed a strikingly reactionary bent.
However, what makes these issues so surprising is that in most cases, the women were not even wearing burkas or burkinis!
“One can not take back the harm which was caused, humiliations that were provoked”, Marwan Muhammad told reporters outside the court.
Marwan Muhammad, the director of the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, one of the nongovernmental organizations involved in challenging the burkini ban, called Friday’s decision a “huge victory for human rights in France”.
The burkini ban has shone a light on secular France’s long-standing difficulties integrating its Muslim population and dealing with the aftermath of a series of Islamist attacks.
At a hearing Thursday, lawyers for the rights groups argued that the bans are feeding fear and infringe on basic freedom.
The bans have divided France’s government and society and drawn anger overseas, especially after images circulated online showing police appearing to force a Muslim woman to take off her tunic.
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“Beachwear which ostentatiously displays religious affiliation, when France and places of worship are now the target of terrorist attacks, is liable to create risks of disrupting public order”, his order said.
