Amidst growing criticism, the Council of State decreed that mayors in the French Riviera don’t have the right to ban burkinis or enforce fines or removal of the garment on the beach.
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Amid the ongoing debate on whether France should ban the Muslim swimsuit burkini, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve on Monday met clerics of the Muslim community to discuss Muslims’ better integration in the secular French state. Officials on the other hand say the ban was enacted in efforts to assuage tension and growing terror-related concerns after a series of attacks shook up the country since past year.
Protesters demonstrate against France’s ban of the burkini, outside the French Embassy in London on Thursday.
The Muslim community however, still maintains that their marginalization is being laced in with propaganda rhetoric.
The issue has become politically charged at the start of party primaries ahead of next year’s presidential election in France, with several leaders on the right and far-right calling for a law prohibiting the full-body swimming costume worn by some Muslim women. Some mayors are refusing to rescind their bans, arguing that the head-to-ankle swimwear could disrupt public order after a summer marred by Islamic extremist attacks.
Despite the high court’s (Conseil d’Etat) decision to overturn a ban on burkinis, former leader Nicolas Sarkozy has called for the outfit to be forbidden nationwide.
Speaking to French daily La Croix on Sunday, Cazeneuve reiterated the government’s opposition to legislating on the controversial matter which has sparked fierce debate both at home and overseas about women’s rights and France’s strictly guarded secularism.
“We do not need a new law. They think that in the current context of terror threats, we can abandon the fundamental principles of law as embodied in the Constitution”, he said, warning that such a move would be “a serious mistake”.
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The national identity crisis exposed by France’s burkini controversy is threatening to set the tone for the country’s presidential campaign.
