The highest administrative court of France has suspended the ban on burkinis in the town of Villeneuve-Loubet, Near Nice, saying the Mayors enjoy no right to do so. Frejus Mayor David Rachline said the court’s ruling is a “victory for radical Islam” and said his city’s ban on the garment will remain intact.
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Patrice Spinosi, a lawyer for the Human Rights League, one of the groups that had challenged the ban, said his association would now ask mayors in other towns to withdraw their bans.
French Health Minister Marisol Touraine posted on her blog that the bans created a “dangerous stigmatisation” and that how women dressed on the beach did not “threaten public order or the values of the Republic”.
French Muslims however, have expressed concern about the ban that could lead to further stigmatization of Muslims, the head of a body representing Muslims in France said.
Proponents of the ban say it protects secularism, especially in the wake of jihadist attacks.
“In the absence of such problem, concerns and anxiety caused by terrorist attacks, in particular the terrorist attacks on July 14 in Nice, are insufficient legal justification for the ban”, Roger explained.
The Council of State said that a burkini ban in the town of Villeneuve-Loubet, on the Riviera, was unwarranted because officials had not “proven risks of disruptions to public order nor, moreover, reasons of hygiene or decency”. “I think our opinion was expressed fairly clearly the other day on the need for people’s personal dignity and person to be respected”.
Some of Sarkozy’s closest supporters said they would propose in September a draft law that would allow mayors to ban burkinis. “France is a democratic country, there is justice and this is good for Muslim women”, he said after Friday prayers at Paris’ main mosque.
The ban had been imposed on the grounds that it contravened French laws on secularism.
Anger over the issue was further inflamed this week when photographs in the British media showed police surrounding a woman in a headscarf on a beach in Nice as she was made to remove a long-sleeved top.
While French Prime Minister Manuel Valls defended the bans, on Thursday calling the burkini a “symbol of the enslavement of women”.
“The burkini would obviously be part of it”, said Le Pen, who is running for president in the 2017 race.
Ange-Pierre Vivoni, Socialist mayor of the Corsican town of Sisco, said his burkini ban, introduced this month following a confrontation between Moroccan bathers and locals, would also remain “for the safety of property and people in the town because I risked having deaths on my hands”. “The judges of the State Council thus suspend this ban”, the court wrote in its decision Friday.
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The bans have divided France’s government and society and drawn anger overseas, especially after images circulated online showing police appearing to force a Muslim woman to take off her tunic.
