A top court in France has overturned the extremely controversial burkini ban on Friday.
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The decision came after civil rights groups lodged a complaint in the Conseil d’Etat, the country’s highest administrative court.
“The council has ruled and has showed that mayors do not have the right to set limits on wearing religious signs in public spaces”, he said, in the absence of a demonstrated threat to public order.
But on Friday, the highest administrative court in France said the burkini ban in Villeneuve-Loubet, one of the towns that has banned it, “seriously and clearly illegally breached fundamental freedoms”.
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.
It ruled that the mayor of Villeuneuve-Loubet overstepped his powers by enacting measures that are not justified by “proven risks of disruptions to public order nor, moreover, on reasons of hygiene or decency”.
He told BFM-TV, “Here the tension is very, very, very strong, and I won’t withdraw it”.
“These bans do nothing to increase public safety but do a lot to promote public humiliation”, said Amnesty’s Europe director John Dalhuisen, who added it was time that the French authorities “drop the pretence” that the ban was about protecting women’s rights.
According to a survey by Ifpop, 64 per cent of French people are in favour of the burkini bans, while 30 per cent described themselves as “indifferent” and only 6 per cent of respondents were opposed.
“The Council of State ruling does not close the debate on the burkini”, Valls said on Facebook. France separates religion and public life, and was the first European country to ban the wearing of the Islamic face veil in public in 2010.
The mayor of Sisco in northern Corsica has already said he won’t lift his ban on the burkini, despite the ruling.
He said that France needed a modern, secular Islam and wearing a burkini clashed with that idea.
“I’m not saying we’re flawless yet, but one of the joys of London is that we don’t simply tolerate difference, we respect it, we embrace it, and we celebrate it”, said the city’s first Muslim mayor yesterday.
Nicolas Sarkozy, who is running again in the election in 2017, has said he will never allow burkinis to be worn if he becomes president.
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“It is legitimate to ask them to have a knowledge of the principles of the organization of the republican state, especially French-style secularism”, he said.
