Battle of the burkini heats up
Undaunted by the suspension of the anti-swimwear decree in a Riviera town, former president Nicolas Sarkozy and others want a nationwide prohibition.
France’s political row over the burkini is continuing to rage, with the French Right stepping up its call for the garment to be outlawed nationwide despite a decision by the country’s highest administrative court to suspend a ban in one Riviera coastal town.
In a ruling that the government had hoped would calm the growing controversy, the state council yesterday suspended a decree against full-body swimsuits issued by the mayor of Villeneuve-Loubet on the Cote d’Azur. The suspension is likely to set a legal precedent for the 30 other towns that have banned the swimwear on their beaches in the past month.
But the French Right, led by former president Nicolas Sarkozy, has stepped up its calls for a complete nationwide ban, and at least one mayor, who is based in Corsica, is refusing to withdraw his ban.
The state council ruled that the mayor of Villeneuve-Loubet did not have the right to ban burkinis. The court found that the antiburkini decrees were ‘‘a serious and manifestly illegal attack on fundamental freedoms’’, including the right to move around in public and the freedom of conscience.
The judges stated that local authorities could only restrict individual liberties if there was a ‘‘proven risk’’ to public order. It ruled that a proven public order risk had not been demonstrated.
Crucially, the judges ruled that without any risk to public order, ‘‘the emotion and the concerns arising from terrorist attacks’’ – especially the attack in Nice on July 14, in which a truck driver killed 86 people – were ‘‘not sufficient to legally justify a ban’’.
In Villeneuve-Loubet, where locals and police told media they had never seen more than maybe one or two burkinis in the past two months, the ban will have to be withdrawn immediately. Its hardline Right-wing mayor, Lionnel Luca, who is close to Sarkozy, said the court ruling was a boost to what he called the ‘‘rampant Islamisation [that] is progressing in our country’’.
‘‘Far from calming, this decision can only heighten passions and tensions, with the risk of trouble we wanted to avoid,’’ he said.
Mayors in the other coastal resorts that have banned burkinis – mainly on the Cote d’Azur – will now have to make their own decisions whether to withdraw the decrees. They could keep their bans in place and risk being forced to suspend them by local courts or face further legal action from human rights groups.
Ange-Pierre Vivoni, a Socialist mayor in Sisco in northern Corsica, said he would not withdraw his ban. ‘‘Here the tension is very, very, very strong and I won’t withdraw it,’’ he said.
He issued his burkini ban on August 13 after a skirmish between villagers and Muslim families on a beach, but an ongoing investigation has suggested there was no burkini involved.
After reports of some women on certain beaches being stopped by police for simply wearing a headscarf and loose clothing, criticism has grown from French rights groups, who have warned of the lasting impact of the bans.
Michel Tubiana, honorary president of the French Human Rights League – one of the groups that brought the test case – said Far from calming, this decision can only heighten passions and tensions, with the risk of trouble we wanted to avoid. that despite the ruling, the burkini row had left a mark on society.
He said the ruling did not resolve everything, because ‘‘the public humiliation of women’’ and ‘‘the political oneupmanship’’ over stigmatising people for religion cut deep.
Tubiana criticised the Socialist prime minister, Manuel Valls, who had supported the mayors who banned burkinis, and Sarkozy, who called the burkini a ‘‘provocation’’, as well as Marine Le Pen’s far-Right Front National, which is calling for a complete ban on all religious symbols – including veils or turbans – from all public spaces.
Tubiana said the burkini row ‘‘will leave traces and scars in society’’. He said the ruling was a reminder of the law for politicians who had stoked tensions in society and ‘‘poured oil on the fire, and in that I include the prime minister and the former president’’.
The burkini row has become the focus of the battle for the presidency in 2017, with Sarkozy, who is seeking his party’s nomination to run for president, leading the charge against the full-body swimwear, and also seeking to ban Muslim headscarves from universities and private companies.
The French Left is bitterly divided on the burkini, with the prime minister supporting the mayors who issued anti-burkini decrees, and the feminist education minister and health minister warning of a dangerous unleashing of racist rhetoric and stigmatisation.
The president, Francois Hollande, appears to be sitting on the fence, saying only that life in France ‘‘supposes that everyone sticks to the rules and that there is neither provocation nor stigmatisation’’.
Many of the bans are due to expire in the next couple of weeks. They do not explicitly use the word burkini but instead ban ‘‘beachwear which ostentatiously displays religious affiliation’’, citing reasons such as the need to protect public order, hygiene or French laws on secularism. Nadine Chalmers-Ross: