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Burkinis Are Not Nice: French Resort Latest To Ban Muslim Swimming Suit

Nice has added its famous beaches to the list of resort areas where the burkini is banned. Like the ban on the veil, it is hard to see how such bans are not openly discriminatory towards Muslims. I fail to understand the rationale for such a ban, particularly when many people now adopt full covering (especially for child) to protect against the damaging sun rays.

The ban prohibits apparel that “overtly manifests adherence to a religion at a time when France and places of worship are the target of terrorist attacks.” That is a rather bizarre rationale. Nice is defending religion by banning religious-based clothing? The reference to the recent attacks seems to struggle to show that this move is a visceral, retaliatory action taken against an entire class of people based on their religion.

There are now 15 towns that have adopted the discriminatory policy, including film festival host-city Cannes.

Nice’s deputy mayor Christian Estrosi did not improve that appearance with his letter to Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Tuesday that “hiding the face or wearing a full-body costume to go to the beach is not in keeping with our ideal of social relations.” Since when does your “ideal of social relations” trump deep-seated religious beliefs?

What do you think?

49 thoughts on “Burkinis Are Not Nice: French Resort Latest To Ban Muslim Swimming Suit”

  3. There is an obvious level of hypocrisy here. The towns and cities that are banning this obvious religious expression, of a religion that has as part of its manifesto the eradication of all who don’t conform under threat of being mowed down by a truck, are primarily tourist destinations. Cannes, Nice, etc allowing these religious expressions to run rampant on the beaches that provide tourist dollars are protecting their image. If you wander around Monte Carlo in front of the Casino or palace with your shirt open or looking disheveled in any way, a police officer will advise you to go somewhere else. Monaco has more police per capita than any other city in the world. The newspapers/police do not report robberies unless someone is injured or killed. The place exists for the ultra rich and is designed for the ultra rich. Such is the case with the burquini issue. In this climate no one wants to visit a beach with expressions of extremism slopping around in the surf. This is the hypocrisy of France. If the mayors avoided the idiotic euphemisms and just came out and said, “bad for business”, it might make a pass. If nude beaches have to be sequestered then perhaps Muslim beaches should be as well. By the way, the beach cannot be private up to high tide. People wearing bathing suits can frolic on nude beaches but nudists cannot on public beaches, for civil laws. Perhaps the solution to all of this is combining the nude and the Islamic bathers. If a Muslim truly believed then he and/or she would not be concerned, after all France is a multicultural, multiracial, multireligous, nation. France should come first and bathing second.

    The greater hypocrisy is of Islam. These people who have been in France for centuries never desired to go swimming wearing a sheet before. I lived on the Riviera for many years and never saw anyone swimming in a sheet. The two possible explanations for this recent behavior can be an increase of the, ‘my religion first-before the country’, thing or recent arrivals who don’t know any better or both.

    The big question, unfortunately that will go unanswered for some time, is if there was no terrorism, would it be OK to slop in the chuck in a sheet? Would Dior and Rome get on the band wagon and design some interesting ensembles? Would anyone even give a f*^$?

    In the end, France has to come out looking bad. The Islamo-babes that frolic in sheets are not terrorists. They are not advocating the overthrow of the government. They are just superficial and backward, like the supposedly chaste Catholic priests and nuns.

    Coming soon between Villefranche sur Mer and Beaulieu, the first Nude/Muslim beach.

  5. If they had banned the wearing of suicide vests or the carrying of Kalishnakov’s then that would be reasonable, but this is clearly an attempt to infringe on the rights of an entire religion. If you support this then you’d fit right in with those wanting to ban the Gadsden flag or praying in public. Nudge. Nudge. Nudge.

    Nicely done.

  6. Dear Chauncy, the Italians also covered up the Roman statues to appease the Iranians. See Turley archives Jan. 25, 2016.

  7. It’s their country, so I’ll let them make up the rules. French also don’t bring boom boxes or coolers full of beer to the beach. I didn’t see any kids covered up to protect them from the sun, either. Since they are all eating their 3-course midday meal at a properly set table, they avoid the most “dangerous” sunrays. Yes, there are topless women bathers, but it is all very discrete. If you want to keep your wife, daughter, sister and mom cov ered up from head to toe then go somewhere else.

  8. @squeek,

    You may be on to something. Maybe I should re evaluate my stance on birquinis.

  11. ” I fail to understand the rationale for such a ban, particularly when many people now adopt full covering (especially for child) to protect against the damaging sun rays.”

    I fail to understand why this is so hard for you to understand. Seems a strange case of blinkered thinking.
    Of which your case example of kids being clothed for sun screen reasons is a complete non-sequitur.

    These are different cases. Others have made the obvious case that the French society does not want to sanction this level of disassociation within their country.

    it seems an obvious point, one that is roiling the world: To have a huge influx of people who specifically do not wish to integrate into the society seems too much to bear.

    This is central to the immigration issue I know. But the way our systems and culture need to adapt and the way the French do are very different systems… We need to be mindful and careful not to think about this only through our lens, and especially not think we understand their world/needs such as to think to impose our solutions on them.

    I know you can think better than this. Will you do so and update this post?

  12. How do nuns, who still don the old-fashioned habits, or priests, who still wear a collar, fare in a country like France, which is so inextricably connected to the church, where the above-referenced prohibition seems to cast a net over them, as well? If the ban includes apparel which overtly manifests adherence to a religion, how do others–Christians, Jews, Sikhs, etc.–skate under the radar?

  14. OK, sooo this did get me into the Irish Poem mood.

    Mer-de Mar???”
    An Irish Poem by Squeeky Fromm

    Oh what man would say, “J’adore!” ?
    When stupid burkinis get wore?
    On the beaches, the Femmes
    Should never wear thems!
    Because this is where, “Less is More!”

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

    FWIW, “Merde” is the French word for poopie, and Mal de Mer is seasickness, sooo this is as close as I can get to a French pun, since I don’t speak French.

  15. ” And have often vacationed back in the ’80s in the South of France where going topless is the norm on the beaches.”

    That’s the ticket – a topless burkini.

  17. I love la belle France. And have often vacationed back in the ’80s in the South of France where going topless is the norm on the beaches. I totally support their right to ban burqinis!

  18. I do noi have a problem with burkinis, but I do have a problem with closing the pool to only women or only men.

  19. If France chooses to have a secular society, where religious views and practices are not to be expressed in public, that is its right. France is not the U.S. If people, regardless of religion, feel compelled to wear religious clothing or symbols, they don’t need to move to France.

  20. France adheres to a strict form of secularism, known as laïcité, which is designed to keep religion out of public life. This principle was entrenched by law in 1905, after fierce anti-clerical struggles with the Roman Catholic church. (economist 2014). The ban on overtly religious clothing or symbols is not directed at Muslims.

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