The French resort of Cannes won court backing for its “burkini ban” on Saturday as a judge refused to overturn its decision to forbid Muslim women from wearing the full-body swimsuit.
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Some French critics of the “Islamic dress day” at the water park say that Muslims who wear religiously affiliated clothing in public are mingling religion with civic life, a muddying of the waters of France’s strict secularism.
Swimwear “manifesting religious affiliation in an ostentatious way, while France and its religious sites are now the target of terrorist attacks, could create risks of trouble to public order”, added Lisnard, who has called the burkini “the uniform of extremist Islamism”. French law bans people from wearing the burka and niqab in public, but there’s no nationwide ban on burkinis.
“The ban is illegal, discriminatory and unconstitutional”, said Sefen Guez lawyer for the Collective Against Islamophobia in France in statements to BBC news.
Earlier this week a waterpark near Marseille cancelled plans to host a burkini party at an indoor pool after it sparked outrage among politicians on both sides of the French political spectrum.
That the debate is occurring on the Riviera, a vacation destination on the Mediterranean but also an anxious region after the terrorist attack on a Bastille Day celebration in the nearby seaside city of Nice, has only added to the controversy.
The full veil in public places is banned in the country but nothing prohibits the wearing of symbols or religious clothing, argued these organizations.
When asked if he thought the ordinance would send a negative message to the numerous Muslim tourists in Cannes, Lisnard replied: “Not at all”.
Cannes lawmakers, still on alert since the July 14 terror attacks in Nice, say the ban is a stance against terrorism, not Muslims beachgoers.
France also has a law, which came into force in 2011, that means women who wear full-face veils in public can be fined around $167.
The post French mayor of Cannes bans “burkini” swimwear appeared first on PBS NewsHour. The association Smile 13 organized the event for women, girls and boys, asking swimmers respect the Islamic notion of “awra”, a reference to parts of the body to be hidden. However, no woman has so far been fined since the law went into effect in July.
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The move to ban the “burkini” follows attacks throughout France in July, which left 85 dead in Nice and saw an elderly priest killed in northern France.
