France’s highest administrative court ruled that mayors do not have the right to ban burkinis.
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At the same time, the decision of the Council of State shows that in general such decisions might be suspended in case of an appeal.
Worldwide opposition to the ban galvanized recently as photos purporting to show a woman forced to strip out of her burkini made headlines and were widely shared on social media.
Police officers in the town will no longer be able to issue fines for burkini-wearing, and women who received fines will be able to contest them.
A spokesman for the ruling Socialist Party and the rector of the Great Mosque of Paris, Dalil Boubakeur welcomed the court ruling and said he hoped it would calm things down. France separates religion and public life, and was the first European country to ban the wearing of the Islamic face veil in public in 2010.
Former president Nicolas Sarkozy, who plans to run for President again in next year’s election, said the wearing of a burkini was a political act and said he would bring in a nationwide ban if he returned to power.
“We need a law”, Nice’s conservative deputy mayor Christian Estrosi said on Twitter, calling for a bill that would allow burkini bans. Logically the mayors should withdraw these ordinances.
“By overturning a discriminatory ban that is fueled by and is fueling prejudice and intolerance, today’s decision has drawn an important line in the sand”, Dalhuisen said in a statement Friday.
A French prosecutor opened an investigation into suspected racial discrimination after two Muslim women said they were ordered out of a restaurant over the weekend with the owner heard saying on an iPhone video, “I don’t want people like you in my place”. But the state council found that this did not hold up under French law.
But 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.
By thus declaring that the burkini ban is against the “fundamental liberties” of French citizens, this ruling, albeit specific to Villeneuve-Loubet, sets the legal precedent for overturning the ban across all the 30 odd municipalities where it has been imposed this summer. He denounced a “rampant Islamization” in the country and said that, with Friday’s ruling, “they’ve gained a small additional step”.
At a hearing Thursday, lawyers for the rights groups argued that the bans are feeding fear and infringe on basic freedom.
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The ban on the burkini (burka-bikini) was introduced in some French cities in July after the terror attack in Nice, when a man drove a truck into crowds of people celebrating Bastille Day.
