“Access to beaches and for swimming is banned to any person wearing improper clothes that are not respectful of good morals and secularism”.
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Burkinis have been barred on the beach in Cannes, in a move the local mayor says is aimed at preventing public disorder.
Thierry Migoule, head of municipal services in Cannes, appeared to stir up the debate by saying the town wanted to ban “ostentatious clothing that shows an allegiance to terrorist movements which are at war with us”.
The ban has drawn protests from French Muslims, who say it is discriminatory.
CCIF lawyer Sefen Guez Guez said he would appeal the decision before France’s highest administrative court, adding: “This decision opens the door to a ban on all religious symbols in the public space”.
A City Hall official said the measure, in effect until the end of August, could apply to burkini-style swimsuits.
“This Islamist day demonstrates that, outside of the comforting words of Muslim authorities, a certain number of Muslims are deciding among themselves to break away from our Republican model and put themselves outside our society”, right-leaning local mayor Stéphane Ravier said after the event was cancelled.
From now on any Muslim woman who ventures down to the beach at Cannes could be subject to a €38 on the spot fine.
French law already forbids face-covering veils anywhere in public, and headscarves in public schools.
Human rights groups and anti discrimination organisations are fighting the Cannes ruling, with the group Collective against Islamophobia in France expressing “deep concern” on their Facebook page at what they called an attack on the most basic principles of the law.
On July 26, two attackers stormed into a church in northern France and slit the throat of an 86-year-old priest, while taking several people hostage.
“Here in France we have a principal of secularism… but this law only talks about Muslim women”, Ben Mohamed said.
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The secular nation is home to one of the EU’s largest Muslim populations, and has had a controversial history of clamping down on religious clothing, becoming the first country in Europe to ban the burqa and the niqab veils in 2011. The attack killed 85 people and was claimed by IS. A statement on its website said the mayor’s logic was “shocking”, and that equating all Muslim symbols to terrorism would create tensions between Catholics and Muslims.
