Burkini ban goes to court

PARIS — Human rights groups challenged the legality of municipal bans on full-body burkini swimsuits before France’s highest administrative court Thursday, a practice that one lawyer fiercely denounced as reflecting “a reflex of fear.”

The three-judge Council of State heard arguments from both sides and said it would issue its ruling Friday over whether to overturn the locally ordered bans. They have elicited shock and anger worldwide after photos this week appeared to show police instructing one Muslim sunbather to remove her body-concealing tunic in Nice, scene of last month’s truck slaughter.

The legal fight over the right of Muslim women to wear burkinis has fired a national debate over the place of Islam in France, a strictly secular country, and fueled concerns at home and abroad that some French mayors are overstepping their powers.

Pleading in a courtroom packed with journalists, legal experts and ordinary citizens, the lawyers for two human rights groups expressed fears that the bans on wearing any religious garments on beaches, if upheld by the court, would be extended to public transportation networks and other public places.

“France has lost any sense of proportion in this matter. The Council of State must be a compass in the tempest and show the right way,” said Patrice Spinosi, a lawyer for the Human Rights League. “The bans have been issued by a reflex of fear.”

Spinosi argued that, before about 30 coastal towns and cities introduced the ban, there weren’t “any riots on the beaches.” He said the bans, by contrast, had stirred “disruption to public order,” driven by the sight of police issuing fines to Muslim women on some Riviera beaches.