A number of French Riviera towns where a similar ban has been recently imposed, expressed their discontent over the court decision, saying their restrictions on the Muslim women’s swimsuit will remain.
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Battling Sarkozy for the Republicain party nomination, Alain Juppe said he is opposed to a “law of circumstance driven by media controversies”.
But the town’s mayor, Lionnel Luca, denounced the ruling.
Burkini is a swimming suit Muslim women wear which covers most of their bodies.
The court found the ban was contrary to the principles of a secular state and “seriously and clearly illegally breached fundamental freedoms”. But the state council found that this did not hold up under French law.
But in its ruling, the State Council said: “In the absence of such risks, the emotion and the concerns arising from terrorist attacks, especially the attack in Nice on July 14, are not sufficient to legally justify a ban”.
He also said women who have already received fines can protest them based on today’s decision.
At a hearing before the state council on Thursday, lawyers for the rights groups in the Villeneuve-Loubet case argued that the bans were feeding fear and infringe on basic freedom.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve will hold a day of talks on Islam in France Monday in an effort to better integrate the religion with the “values of the Republic”.
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.
A court in Nice had upheld the Villeneuve-Loubet ban this week.
Ange-Pierre Vivoni, the mayor of the small Corsican town of Sisco, said he would keep the ban in place because the issue had sparked a violent beachfront brawl earlier this month.
Rightwing figures are pushing for a nationwide ban to be written into law, led by former president Nicolas Sarkozy who this week launched his bid to regain the presidency in next year’s election.
Protestors recently gathered outside the French embassy in London, asking people to “show solidarity with French Muslim women [and] call for the repeal of this oppressive law by the French Government”.
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Im relieved with the decision of the highest court, Samia Hathroubi, a French-Tunisian activist from the Foundation of Ethnic Understanding, told Travel + Leisure.
