PARIS: A woman wearing a headscarf (right), and who refused to be identified, stands outside the Conseil d’Etat, France’s top administrative court, in Paris, yesterday. (Inset) Marwan Muhammad, head of the Collective Against the Islamophobia in France, answers reporters outside the Conseil d’Etat in Paris yesterday. — AP

Top French court suspends 'illegal' burkini ban as 'serious' violation of freedoms

27 Aug 2016,

France's highest administrative court has suspended a controversial ban on the burkini by a French Riviera town after it was challenged by rights groups.

In a judgement expected to lead to bans being overturned in around 30 towns, the State Council ruled the measure was a "serious and clearly illegal violation of fundamental freedoms".

The court said local authorities could only introduce measures restricting individual freedoms if wearing the Islamic swimsuit on beaches represented a "proven risk" to public order.

The judges said there was no such risk in the case before the court concerning Villeneuve-Loubet, a resort on the Cote d'Azur between Nice and Cannes.

The French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) hailed the ruling as a "victory for common sense".

Police have fined Muslim women for wearing burkinis on beaches in several towns, including in the popular tourist resorts of Nice and Cannes, and the ban has triggered a fierce debate about women's rights and France's strictly-guarded secularism.

Anger over the issue was further inflamed this week when photographs in the British media showed police surrounding a woman in a headscarf on a beach in Nice.

The mayor's office denied the woman had been forced to remove clothing, telling AFP she was showing police the swimsuit she was wearing under her top, over a pair of leggings, when the picture was taken.

Photo: Amnesty International said the decision has "drawn an important line in the sand" ((File photo) AFP: Fethi Belaid)

The court decision to suspend the ban was praised by the United Nations.

"We welcome the decision by the court," spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said, adding that the UN stressed "the need for people's dignity to be respected".

Amnesty International said the ruling had "drawn an important line in the sand".

"French authorities must now drop the pretence that these measures do anything to protect the rights of women," Amnesty's Europe director John Dalhuisen said.

"These bans do nothing to increase public safety but do a lot to promote public humiliation."

Debate not yet over: Valls

Reacting to the court ruling on Friday, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that France needed a modern, secular Islam and wearing a burkini clashed with that idea.

"The Council of State ruling does not close the debate on the burkini," Mr Valls said on Facebook.

"Denouncing the burkini is not calling into question individual freedom ... it is denouncing deadly, backwards Islamism."

But in a sign of the divisions within the Socialist Government on the issue, Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem said the "proliferation" of burkini bans "was not a welcome development".

Ms Vallaud-Belkacem took issue with the wording of the ban in Nice which linked the measure to last month's jihadist truck attack in the resort that killed 86 people.

"In my opinion, there is nothing to prove that there is a link between the terrorism of Daesh and what a woman wears on a beach," she said.

Ange-Pierre Vivoni, the mayor of the small Corsican town of Sisco, said he would keep the ban in place because the issue had sparked a violent beachfront brawl earlier this month.

"I introduced the ban for the safety of property and people in the town because I risked having deaths on my hands," he said.