Burkini ban defended

PARIS: French Prime Minister Manuel Valls stood by a ban on burkinis in more than a dozen coastal towns yesterday, saying France was locked in a “battle of cultures” and the full-body swimsuit symbolised the enslavement of women.

Photographs of armed police ordering a Muslim woman on a beach in Nice to partially derobe went viral on social media this week, upsetting many French Muslims and causing global consternation.

In a sign of rifts opening in the socialist government before a presidential election in 2017, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, France’s Moroccan-born education minister, cautioned the debate was fanning racist rhetoric and being used for political gains.