It would be “unconstitutional” for France to pass a law banning the burkini and such a move could cause irreparable harm, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve warned in an interview published online late Sunday.
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On Friday, France’s highest administrative court, suspended the ban in the Mediterranean town of Villeneuve-Loubet, pending a definitive ruling.
“France is at war with terrorists, at war with an enemy trying to divide it and pit the French against each other, fracture the nation’s body, sap the republic”, Cazeneuve said.
For breaking the burkini ban, one will face fines of €38 ($42), the mayor of the French city of Cannes has said.
As the video began making Internet rounds, Laurence Rossignol, the French minister for families, children and women’s rights said she had ordered an investigation and called for sanctions against the “intolerable behavior” of the restaurant’s boss, reports France 24.
In its decision, the court said local authorities could only introduce measures restricting individual freedoms if wearing the swimsuit on beaches represented a “proven risk” to public order.
Amnesty International Europe Director John Dalhuisen was one of many human rights activists who praised last week’s ruling.
You don’t need to be following the frothing mess that is France’s burkini ban-and the recent suspension of said ban-to know that tensions between France’s sizable Muslim population and the secularist majority is at an all-time high.
From the beach to a restaurant, it’s a damn sad day when innocent people are alienated, ridiculed, and chased away just due to their religious identity.
The mayor of a seaside town on the French Riviera is sticking by his town’s burkini ban, telling beachgoers, “if you don’t want to live the way we do, don’t come”.
Local mayors have cited security concerns amongst a variety of reasons for the bans. The headscarf was banned from schools in 2004.
“The shocking images” of police undressing a burkini-clad Muslim woman on a Nice beach will fuel support for the extremist group known as ISIS, or Daesh, Britain’s Independent newspaper reported.
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Twelve days later, France was struck by another Islamic attack, when two young Muslims who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State slit the throat of an elderly priest, Father Jacques Hamel, as he celebrated Mass at his church near Rouen, Normandy.
