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Woman in burkini in Marseille, southern France
Photo: STRINGER/ REUTERS
An old debate regularly flares up in France at the beginning of the bathing season: Should Muslim women be allowed to visit public swimming pools in a burkini?
The municipal council of the city of Grenoble in the south-east of the country now wants to go a new way: a new regulation will be voted on here on Monday afternoon.
Mayor Eric Piolle of the Greens wants to abolish all regulations for women and allow both topless bathing and full-body bathing suits.
"We want public offers to be accessible to everyone, we want everyone to be able to bathe 'topless', both women and men, and that everyone can bathe covered, women and men," Piolle told the France Info channel.
It is irrelevant "whether it's a body-covering bathing suit to protect against the sun or for religious reasons, that's none of our business," he had previously told "Figaro" and lamented the "extremely violent debates" that had broken out about his proposal.
While the topless proposal went largely unnoticed, the full-body bathing suit, often referred to as a burkini, is causing a stir: some critics in France, which insists on a strict separation of state and religion, suspect a creeping Islamization behind this plan.
»Sexist ideology of the subjugation of women«
Piolle's conservative opponent on the city council, Alain Carignon, spoke of illegitimate support for political Islam and called for a referendum.
In addition, opponents of the burkini launched a petition.
"A change in the bathing rules would meet the demands of a political Islam, that is, a totalitarian and radical ideology," says the appeal.
Burkinis have nothing to do with the Koran, they are about the sexist ideology of subjugating women.
A rejection of burkinis is not Islamophobic, on the contrary, special claims of individual groups cannot be placed above the principles of the republic.
"For secularism and equality before the law"
The project contradicts Republican values, said Prisca Thévenot, a spokeswoman for the ruling party LREM.
"Whoever enters a swimming pool has to obey rules." One of the most important rules in France is "secularism and equality before the law," she added.
Prefect Laurent Prévost announced on Sunday evening court action if burkinis are allowed to be worn in public baths in Grenoble.
According to the instructions of Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, he wanted to go to the administrative court to have the regulation suspended.
The word burkini is a combination of bikini and burka - a full-body veil for women demanded by Islamists.
There was already a heated argument about the items of clothing in France in the summer of 2016, and there were also local bans.
Finally, the Council of State declared a municipal burkini ban, as enacted on the Côte d'Azur, to be illegal.
Municipalities are citing safety and hygiene requirements to keep burkinis banned from beaches and pools.
ala/AFP/dpa