The same suit was banned in more than a dozen French towns earlier this month because leaders said the Burkini represents a militant act and a provocation. He said that those who have been fined could claim to get their money back. Around a decade ago an Australian woman of Lebanese origin created a swimsuit for Muslim women designed to permit them to keep their bodies covered while working as lifeguards on Australian beaches.
Advertisement
The court said in a statement the decree to ban burkinis in Villeneuve-Loubet “seriously, and clearly illegally, breached the fundamental freedoms to come and go, the freedom of beliefs and individual freedom”. If Villeneuve-Loubet’s ban is found to be illegal, that ruling could set a precedent for the others, the BBC reports.
The lawyer, Patrice Spinosi, says that if the mayors refuse to do so after Friday’s ruling by the Council of State, he will systematically take each case to court.
“After the temporary bans in France, Metwally chose to form a ladies” team for an upcoming swimming event in January next year.
“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.
The first article of the French constitution enshrines this principle, and France has repeatedly cited this secularist agenda when targeting Muslim practices that are seen to push religion too far into public life.
The office of Nice’s mayor denied that the woman had been forced to remove her clothing, saying that she was showing police the swimsuit she was wearing under her top, over a pair of leggings, when the picture was taken.
The court will make a final decision on the legality of the bans later.
The legal challenge focused on the ban in the town of Villeneuve-Loubet on the French Riviera, but the Council’s ruling will be binding for all the 30 or so towns that have banned the burkini. “If not legal actions could be taken” against those towns.
Town hall authorities in Nice said the mayor would continue to fine women wearing burkinis while the mayor of nearby Frejus, David Rachline, told AFP that “the Frejus order is still valid”.
Nevertheless, the mayor of the Corsican town of Sisco said he wouldn’t lift the ban he imposed after an August 13 clash on a beach.
Many conservatives and right-wing French supported the burkini ban, with some calling for it to be extended nationwide, while civil liberties campaigners, feminists and Muslims opposed it.
Why have the bans been imposed?
Some Cities in France including Nice and Corsica had proposed a really controversial ban on the wearing the “burkini”.
But the bans are not just a response to a spate of deadly jihadist attacks on French soil.
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”.
Advertisement
The 1905 constitution aims to separate Church and state.
