Sarkozy demands burkini ban across France
Former president says minorities are now in charge, as Paris mayor calls for end to ‘hysteria’
NICOLAS SARKOZY, the former French president, last night called for a burkini ban across France as he said that immigrants, minorities and the Left were threatening to destroy French identity.
In the first big speech of his campaign to win back the office he lost in 2012, Mr Sarkozy stole many ideas of the far-Right Front National, promising to reclaim France “for the French”.
“I refuse to let the burkini impose itself at French beaches and swimming pools ... there must be a law to ban it throughout the Republic’s territory,” he said to thunderous applause during a speech in Provence, a stronghold of the Front National.
Mr Sarkozy went on to demand that all minorities and immigrants speak French and promised – for example – that he would never accept a France where men and women had separate timetables at public swimming baths.
“Where is the authority when it is the minorities who govern? Never before has so much been ceded to them,” said the 61-year-old who declared his candidacy on Monday.
“I will be the president that re-establishes the authority of the state,” he said, promising to protect the French and insisting it was not “fascist” to be concerned about security.
In a speech filled with conservative political red meat, Mr Sarkozy also promised to institute compulsory military service for “dropouts” who were not employed or in full-time education at the age of 18.
Mr Sarkozy’s speech came as debate continued to rage in France over a ban on the burkini after armed police were photographed on a beach in Nice forcing a woman to remove her headscarf and other articles of clothing.
The images provoked an outcry on social media, leading Christian Estrosi, the deputy mayor of Nice, to threaten he would prosecute “those who spread photographs of our municipal police officers and those uttering threats against them on social networks”.
Support for banning the all-covering swimsuits is not confined to the Right, however. Manuel Valls, the French Socialist prime minister, again yesterday reiterated his belief that the burkini was a “symbol of the enslavement of women” and must be banned. “We have to wage a determined fight against radical Islam, against these religious symbols which are filtering into public spaces,” he said.
Others have spoken out against the ban, including Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, and his counterpart in Paris who both backed campaigners who are fighting to have the ban overturned in France’s highest court. “I don’t think anyone should tell women what they can and can’t wear,” Mr Khan said during a visit to Paris yesterday. Anne Hidalgo, the city’s mayor, called for an end to “burkini hysteria”.
France’s highest administrative court, the State Council, began consid- ering an appeal by the Human Rights League (LDH), to overturn the ban. A decision is expected today. France banned the burka in 2010 but authorities in 26 towns in the south have gone further by forbidding burkinis. Those wearing the suits in public can be fined for breaching rules on secularism.
A recent poll suggests that more than two thirds of France supports the ban. The British Government has said that a burkini ban would not be “in keeping with Britain’s tradition of freedom and fairness”. A spokesman for the Government Equalities Office, said: “The Government sees no need for measures restricting what people can wear in public places.”
‘I refuse to let the burkini impose itself on French beaches ... there must be a law to ban it throughout the Republic’s territory’