Beach bullies

IT WAS strange to see an armed policeman ordering a woman on a beach to take off some of her clothes. And yet that is precisely what has been happening in France – the inevitable consequence of a ban on the so-called burkini, now in place in 15 French municipalities.

A number of women opting for more modest beachwear have already been fined.

But since that photographed confrontation, a French court has ruled against the ban. And French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the bans were unconstitutional, and would stoke tensions.

Stated reasons for the prohibition of religious garb on these beaches included that they were not outfits respecting good morals and secularism. The photograph of the offending beach-goer showed her wearing leggings, a tunic and headscarf, lying alone when four policemen in bulletproof vests, with sidearms and truncheons, approached her.

Imagine this during a christening in the surf off many of our beaches, where robed churchgoers regularly hold such ceremonies. Prescribing what a woman can wear on a beach also harks back several decades.

At some point, there is every possibility that some misguided magistrate will lock up a woman for expressing her religion. That will provoke protests and worse across France, and more widely.

If the aim of the terrorists who took so many innocent lives in Paris, Nice and elsewhere was to foment hatred and conflict, the French authorities have more than fulfilled their wicked ambitions.

Victimising and bullying Muslim women on beaches casts the country in a most unfavourable light. It is unprincipled – why stop at the beaches? It is also divisive.