Reversal of the burqini ban can’t undo damage to France’s image

The court ruling ends the dark farce at least for now, writes Colin Randall

France’s highest court, the Conseil d’Etat, has ruled that the orders on burqini should be suspended since they “clearly, illegally breached fundamental freedoms". Regis Duvignau / Reuters

A sunny place for shady people. Rarely has the author Somerset Maugham’s description of the French Riviera seemed more apt than in the midst of the burqini saga.

This magnificent part of a beautiful country, whose mountains, shoreline and sheer joie de vivre detain me for about half of each year, has felt strangely ugly this summer.

First there was the slaughter on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice when Mohamed Louaiej-Bouhlel ploughed a lorry into defenceless crowds after a Bastille night fireworks display. Then we saw mayors along the coast falling over themselves to rush out special orders banning Muslim women from wearing their chosen beachwear.

There is, of course, not the slightest link between the actions of an evil Tunisian terrorist and an innocent mode of clothing that rendered its wearers liable to public humiliation as police patrolled the beaches and dished out fines. For there to be a genuine connection, it would also be necessary to apportion collective guilt to Christians, mayors or not, for the Holocaust and Inquisition.

Yet those same mayors invoke the tensions caused by terrorist attacks, also including the wicked murder of a Catholic priest while celebrating mass, to justify their bans.

At least France’s highest court, the Conseil d’Etat, has ruled that the orders should be suspended since they “clearly, illegally breached fundamental freedoms”.

This does not go far enough for some, who fear a government could still introduce legislation to restore and even extend the measure.

In the torrent of words seen and heard on the issue in France, wisdom and restraint have been at a premium. A hitherto sensible prime minister, Manuel Valls, supported the bans and talked of the burqini enslaving women. At least one mayor likened the garment to the uniform of extremism.

Wilfully or otherwise, they overlooked an inconvenient detail. No one should be forced to wear a burqini, burqa or any item, but the 2011 French law banning face-covering veils already recognises this, providing stiff penalties for coercion. And as the widely circulated photographs and video images from the Cote d’Azur amply demonstrate, the faces of the women confronted by police are clearly visible; in other words, they were punished for wearing at the beach what can perfectly legitimately be worn on the street.

As for the risk of causing offence at a time of insecurity, also cited by champions of the bans, we are entitled to ask about the loutish behaviour of non-Muslim onlookers who egged on the police in their unseemly interventions.

For voices of reason, we turned to two Parisians. Rachid Nekkaz, a businessman of Algerian parentage and nationality, dislikes the niqab and is not greatly fond of the burqini, but regards banning either as a blatant denial of human rights. He promised to pay all fines imposed, just as he did for women caught under the 2011 law, and described the mayoral edicts as a “dangerous cocktail of intolerance and paranoia”.

Isabelle Adjani, a revered French actress, also finds the burqini unappealing but expresses unease at “trying to impose liberty using bans”.

The court ruling, inadequate as Mr Nekkaz finds it, ends this dark farce at least for now. But the damage to France’s reputation is done.

There is one other aspect to be raised with the mayor of my own little resort, west of Nice, who joined this foolish bandwagon with his own burqini ban.

Since we occasionally pass in the street, I have made a mental note to ask what his attitude would have been towards two late aunts. Both were nuns, typically covered much more severely than anything seen in the current debate and unlikely to uncover for the beach.

Colin Randall is a former executive editor of The National