France's highest administrative court suspended a ban on full-body burkini swimsuits on Friday.
France's highest administrative court on Friday suspended a ban on full-body burkini swimsuits that has outraged Muslims and opened divisions within the government, pending a definitive ruling. The Conseil d'Etat gave the ruling following a request from the League of Human Rights to overturn the burkini ban in the Mediterranean town of Villeneuve-Loubet on the grounds it contravenes civil liberties.
The court said in a statement the decree to ban burkinis in Villeneuve-Loubet "seriously, and clearly illegally, breached the fundamental freedoms to come and go, the freedom of beliefs and individual freedom." Under the French legal system, temporary decisions can be handed down before the court takes more time to prepare a judgement on the underlying legality of the case.
The ban, which spread to more than a dozen coastal towns, had exposed cracks within the Socialist government's unity as Prime Minister Manuel Valls defended it on Thursday while some ministers criticised it. The issue has shone a light on secular France's difficulties responding to homegrown jihadists and foreign militants following Islamist attacks in Nice and a Normandy church in July.
It has also made French cultural identity a hot-button issue along with security in political debates as the country switches into campaign mode ahead of a presidential election next April.
Valls also said that France was locked in a "battle of cultures" and that the full-body swimsuit symbolised the enslavement of women.
Former head of state Nicolas Sarkozy in an earlier interview with the Figaro magazine commented, "The Burkini is a political act, a militant act, a provocation. Women who wear it are testing the Republic." Sarkozy joined the race for the presidential polls to be held in 2017 on Monday.
Burkini ban came to the forefront when photographs of armed police ordering Muslim woman on a beach in Nice to partially disrobe went viral on social media this week. The incident did not go well with Muslims across the globe.
With agency inputs
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