The decision is expected to set a precedent for all the 30 or so French resorts, chiefly along the Riviera, that issued similar bans.
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Patrice Spinosi, an attorney for the LDF, said, “The council has ruled and has showed that mayors do not have the right to set limits on wearing religious signs in public spaces”.
“The emotion and the anxieties resulting from the terrorist attacks and especially the one committed in Nice on July 14, are not sufficient to justify legally the prohibition”, the judgement said.
The ban “constituted a serious and manifestly illegal infringement of fundamental liberties”, it said, ruling that mayors “may only restrict freedoms if there are confirmed risks” to public safety, which it said was not the case with the burkini.
But the mayor of Villeneuve-Loubet, Lionnel Luca, of Sarkozy’s Les Republicains party, said it would heighten tensions. He denounced a “rampant Islamization” in the country and said that, with Friday’s ruling, “they’ve gained a small additional step”.
“This judgment does not affect us here because we had a fight over it [the burkini]”, said Ange-Pierre Vivoni, referring to a brawl on a beach in Sisco on August 13 which preceded the ban.
He demanded a nationwide burkini ban this week, placing Islam, immigration and security at the heart of his campaign to win back power from the Socialists in elections next year.
Allies of Mr Sarkozy said that they would propose a draft law that would allow mayors to ban burkinis.
And says she wouldn’t hesitate to wear a Burkini where it’s banned in France.
Support for the bans is not confined to the Right.
“Denouncing the burkini is not calling into question individual freedom”. There is no freedom that locks up women!
“Beachwear which ostentatiously displays religious affiliation, when France and places of worship are now the target of terrorist attacks, is liable to create risks of disrupting public order”, his order said.
The French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) hailed the ruling as a “victory for common sense”. Around a decade ago an Australian woman of Lebanese origin created a swimsuit for Muslim women designed to permit them to keep their bodies covered while working as lifeguards on Australian beaches.
The ruling was closely watched in France and around the world, after photos of armed police surrounding a Muslim woman as she removed her top on a beach in Nice sparked outrage this week.
Several French towns banned the burkini for reasons including security and fears of public disorder.
A spokesperson for Nice town hall said it would “continue to fine” women wearing full Islamic coverings on the beach.
A spokesperson for Amnesty International said the court’s ruling “has drawn an important line in the sand” and that “French authorities must now drop the pretence that these measures do anything to protect the rights of women”.
Police action to fine Muslim women for wearing burkinis on beaches in several towns, including in the tourist resorts of Nice and Cannes, has triggered a fierce debate about women’s rights and the French state’s strictly-guarded secularism.
Meanwhile, terror analysts have warned that the dispute will fuel jihadist propaganda as groups like Isis attempt to portray France and other Western countries as at war with Muslims.
National Front leader Marine Le Pen says the overturning of a ban on burkinis in a French Mediterranean town is “not surprising” but the battle is not over. “The enforcement of these bans leads to abuses and the degrading treatment of Muslim women and girls”.
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For months he lagged in opinion polls behind Alain Juppe, a mild-mannered, more centrist former prime minister who is his main rival for the November primaries that will choose a conservative candidate for the election.
