He is the third city official to ban the swimsuit, after it was outlawed in the French Riviera resorts of Cannes and Villeneuve-Loubet.
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The municipalities’ decision came after a brawl broke out last Saturday between Muslim families and a group of young Corsicans in Sisco after a tourist took pictures of women bathing in a burkini. In a country that already enacted a “burqa ban” forbidding full-face veils, the seaside resort towns Leucate, Oye-Plage, and Le Touquet are expected to also ban the burkini. “I don’t think we should legislate the issue”.
But critics say they’ve deepened the religious divide, and Islamic State extremists say the laws are justification for attacking France.
‘The burkini is. a particular vision of the place of the woman.
The ban comes into force weeks after 85 people were killed and dozens more injured when a lorry deliberately drove into crowds of people in neighbouring Nice.
The new ban in the Corsican village follows a fight on the beach on Saturday which was broken up by hundreds of riot police.
The justice authorities have launched an investigation into exactly what happened in the beach incident.
In fact, it would be challenging to spot a burkini on most French beaches, and even some of the mayors considering the bans admit to never having seen one.
The text of the municipal decree has been used, typically word for word, in bans elsewhere.
But Villeneuve-Loubet mayor Lionnel Luca had a different argument, saying swimming “fully dressed…”
The local ban is said to have been imposed on the basis of secularism, but it has been widely opposed by Muslim groups, anti-racism organisations and human rights groups who call the ban unconstitutional, intolerant, divisive and Islamophobic.
The Collective Against Islamophobia in France filed a lawsuit against Cannes city over the burkini ban, but a court dismissed the request. “That is not compatible with the values of France and those of the [French] Republic”.
“I understand the mayors who, in that moment of tension, have the reflex to look for solutions to avoid disturbances to public order”, said Manuel Valls in an interview with regional daily La Provence. He said: “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”.
Rejecting claims that the bans, which can levy a 38-euro (43 dollar) fine, inhibits a woman’s freedom to choose her attire, Valls asserted that the only liberty at stake was the “liberty to subjugate women”. “It is the expression of a political project, a counter-society, based notably on the enslavement of women”, he said.
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There are also lots of other rules prohibiting religious clothing.
