Thread: Burkini Ban Goes Into Effect in Cannes, France

Burkini Ban Goes Into Effect in Cannes, France

The city is concerned that violence could break out as burkini wearing may lead to scuffles. Anyone breaching the ban will face a fine.

Sun, August 14, 2016

(Photo © Thomas Leth-Olsen / flickr)

Burkinis are beachwear that observant Muslim women wear in order to benefit from a beach and the sea while remaining modest. However, in Cannes in southern France the threat of Islamist extremism and the reaction to it from fearful French people have led city mayor David Lisnard to announce a ban.

He described the swimwear as “a symbol of Islamic extremism,” and expressed the fear that their appearance on city beaches could lead to scuffles.

Anyone caught wearing a burkini could face a $42 fine.

Here's an interesting take on the bikini-burkini debate:

A week ago Clarion Project reported:

Michel Amiel, mayor of Les Pennes-Mirabeau, a town next to Marseilles on the French Riviera, has indicated that he is prepared to issue a decree banning a burkini bathing event at the town’s Speed Water Park.

France is trying to come to terms with the double impact of having a large Muslim minority and now facing a wave of terrorism carried out by Islamist extremists.

Support for the far right agenda is growing and some leading politicians have admitted they are at a loss as to how to cope with the terror threat. The south is particularly edgy right now, following the July Nice boardwalk truck attack in which more than 80 people were killed.

Burkini Ban Goes Into Effect in Cannes, France

Corsican town becomes third in France to ban the burkini after riots

A woman in a burkini in Marseille, southern France

Rory Mulholland, paris 15 AUGUST 2016 • 12:57PM

The mayor f a Corsican village that was the scene of a massive brawl - apparently sparked by burkinis - between locals and youths of North African origin has banned the full-body swimsuits from nearby beaches.

The ban is the third to be introduced this summer in French towns, with the mayor of the glitzy Riviera resort of Cannes saying he would not allow “a uniform that is the symbol of Islamist extremism" to be worn on the beaches in his town.

Mayor Pierre-Ange Vivoni of Sisco, a small village in the north of Corsica, said that burkinis would be banned in the area from Tuesday.

The decision was made at a special council session held on Sunday to assess the situation after the beach brawl the day before in which five people were injured and several cars burned.

The burkini bans have sparked controversy as tensions have grown this summer between Muslims of North African origin and others in communities in the south of France, in particular after the massacre of 85 people in Nice a month ago by a Tunisian truck driver.

Supporters of the bans say the garment - which some Muslim women wear to meet with Islamic requirements to dress modestly in public - collides with French secular principles.

But anti-racism campaigners saying that banning women from wearing it amounts to discrimination.

Burkinis were the apparent cause of the brawl on a beach near Sisco on Saturday.

The village's mayor said that the incident started when a tourist took a photo of some young women wearing burkinis.

“And the Maghrebins (North Africans) didn’t want to have their photos taken. It was quite a trivial matter to begin with,” Mr Vivoni said.

A hundred police officers were mobilised to break up the fight, which lasted for several hours.

A series of incidents in Corsica have raised tensions in recent months between local Muslims and their neighbours.

Last Christmas Day a mob ransacked a Muslim prayer hall and set fire to copies of the Koran in the Corsican capital Ajaccio after an assault on firefighters that was blamed on youths of Arab origin.

In July Corsican lawmakers called on the French state to close down radical mosques on the island, after an underground separatist movement issued a threat against Islamic extremists.

A splinter group of the nationalist Corsican National Liberation Front (FLNC) warned Islamists that any attack on the island would trigger "a determined response, without any qualms".

Corsican town becomes third in France to ban the burkini after riots