A man wears a sign with the message, “Burkini = Liberty” outside the Conseil d’Etat after France’s highest administrative court suspended a ban on full-body burkini swimsuits that has outraged Muslims and opened divisions within the government.
Advertisement
The contentious ban prevented women from enjoying the beach, and caused global uproar earlier this week after images surfaced of a woman being forced to undress in public by police officers, or risk getting cited for not wearing an “outfit respecting good morals and secularism”. It prohibited the beach access to “any person that does not have a dress, respectful of morality and the principle of secularism, and respect the rules of hygiene and safety adapted swimming maritime public domain”.
“By overturning a discriminatory ban that is fueled by and is fueling prejudice and intolerance, today’s decision has drawn an important line in the sand”, Amnesty International Europe Director John Dalhuisen said in a statement.
The ruling agreed that the ban represents an “illegal infringement on basic freedoms such as freedom to come and go, freedom of conscience and personal freedom”.
“We need a law”, Nice’s conservative deputy mayor Christian Estrosi said on Twitter, calling for a bill that would allow burkini bans.
Reuters adds that former French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Thursday that if elected president, he would institute a nationwide ban on the burkini.
In its ruling, the court, known as the Council of State, found that the ban in the town of Villeneuve-Loubet violated civil liberties, including freedom of movement and religious freedom, and that officials had failed to demonstrate that the swimwear posed a threat to public order. Reaction to Friday’s court ruling was mixed but mostly in support of the suspension.
“It’s actually protecting them against skin cancer or from future issues, so it’s not just for Muslim women it’s for women in general that just want to be either modest or protective”.
“The Council of State ruling does not close the debate on the burkini”, Valls said on Facebook. In 2011, it became the first European country to ban the burqa, a full-body covering, and the full-face veil, considered essential attire outside the home among some Muslim women.
The State Council heard arguments from the Human Rights League and an anti-Islamophobia group (CCIF).
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.
Burkini bans spread following the Bastille Day terrorist attack in Nice last month. Meanwhile, the leader of the right-wing National Front party Marine Le Pen, has urged French lawmakers to vote “as quickly as possible” to extend the 2004 law banning Muslim headscarves and other ostentatious religious symbols in classrooms to include all public spaces, saying “The burkini would obviously be part of it”. Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, however, says bans on the garment are politically motivated.
Advertisement
“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”, the Council of State’s ruling stated.
