The following day, the Cote d’Azur city of Cannes banned the burkini and the nearby resort of Villeneuve-Loubet followed suit in early August. Five towns have banned them.
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French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has backed several bans on the so-called burkini-a women’s swimsuit created to comply with Islamic values-according to local media in southern France.
Such prohibitions “have serious consequences by antagonizing the public debate and turning communities against each other”, said Michel Tubiana, president emeritus of the French League of Human Rights (LDH), adding that the law should not dictate how people should dress.
Nekkaz also set up a £700,000 fund in 2010 to pay fines for women caught wearing the burka, and the full-face veil was banned in public France six years ago.
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. “It can not be considered only as a question of fashion or individual liberty”, Rossignol said on Europe-1 radio.
But Rim-Sarah Alouane, a religious freedom expert at the University of Toulouse, says the anti-burkini brigade is relying on outdated ideas about Islam to stigmatize France’s No. 2 religion. “He also invokes the fight against terrorism, so he is basically saying a Muslim woman who wears a burkini is a terrorist”.
“Following the [terrorist] attacks [of July in Nice], the atmosphere is very tense and the burqini is seen as an ostentatious display that can threaten public order, that is why we took the measure”, she said.
Local mayors cite multiple reasons for their burkini bans, including the difficulty of rescuing bathers in copious clothing.
Three more seaside towns yesterday banned women from wearing burkinis on their beaches – Leucate, near Perpignan; as well as Oye-Plage and Le Touquet in Pas-de-Calais.
Critics warn the bans could enflame religious and social tensions in a country already on edge.
“It’s not a question of whether the veil signifies enslavement or independence”.
More than 230 people have been killed in France in the past 20 months by extremists, and authorities are struggling to protect the country’s Muslims from racist backlash while allaying fears over extremism.
In neighboring Belgium, however, Nadia Sminate of the right-leaning Flemish N-VA party, chair of the Radicalization Committee in the Flemish Parliament, wants burkinis off public beaches.
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But, in an interview, he said he did not believe a law was needed to ban the full-body swimwear that has sparked controversy in recent weeks. “I do not think we should legislate on the matter: the general regulation of dress requirements cannot be a solution”, he said.
