France’s top administrative court has overturned Friday Aug. 26, 2016 a town burkini ban amid shock and anger worldwide after some Muslim women were ordered to remove body-concealing garments on French Riviera beaches.
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Benoit Hamon, a former Socialist government minister seeking the leftist presidential nomination, tweeted Sunday that the burkini debate “is targeting Muslims once again”.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the former French president, on Thursday called for a full ban, as he warned that immigrants, minorities and the Left were threatening to destroy French identity.
The burkini bans have prompted a row over the French principle of laïcité – secularism – amid accusations that politicians are twisting and distorting this principle for political gain, and using it to target Muslims. And, while the suspension only applies to Villeneuve-Loubet near Nice at the moment, the human rights organisations that brought the case forward hope the ban will be overturned elsewhere.
It said it also violates the freedom to come and go as well as individual freedom.
An ally of Mr Sarkozy, Guillaume Larrive, said: “We support 100 per cent the mayors who introduced bans”.
What’s worth mentioning is that the Council of State’s ruling deals only with Villeneuve-Loubet, one out of 31 other towns that had imposed similar bans.
The court will make a final decision on the legality of the bans later.
The burkini – and the decisions to ban wearing them on beaches – has become the focus of spirited global debates over women’s rights, assimilation and secularism.
And rights groups are promising to take the mayors to court, meaning more lawsuits are expected. Ange-Pierre Vivoni, a left-wing mayor in Corsica said his town prohibited the swimwear to prevent skirmishes between Muslim families and the anti-Muslim residents who’ve been harassing them. A suggestion which would court the far-right vote. She said in a statement that lawmakers must vote “as quickly as possible” to extend a 2004 law that bans Muslim headscarves and other ostentatious religious symbols in classrooms to include all public spaces.
Terrorism analysts warned that the bans were feeding jihadist propaganda and could help Isil recruit new members.
Amnesty International said Friday’s court decision had “drawn an important line in the sand”.
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“The burkini would obviously be part of it”, said Le Pen, who is running for president in the 2017 race.
