Mayor in Corsica bans burkinis amid tensions

PanARMENIAN.Net - A village mayor in Corsica has banned full-body swimsuits known as "burkinis" after a beach brawl between families of North African descent and local youths, BBC News reports.

The ban was imposed at a special council session on Sunday, August 14 in Sisco amid tensions over the brawl, in which five people were hurt.

Authorities in Cannes and Villeneuve-Loubet, on the French Riviera, also banned Islamic burkinis this month.

Witnesses say hatchets and harpoons were used in the Sisco beach brawl.

The five injured on Saturday were later discharged from hospital, but tensions are simmering in the area.

Tension has grown this summer between local communities and Muslims of North African origin in the south of France, especially following the massacre of 85 people by a lorry driver on the seafront at Nice on 14 July.

Women's rights minister Laurence Rossignol warned that the debate over burkinis was being used for "ulterior motives", especially by the far right. While denouncing the burkini as "profoundly archaic", she said that in order to combat such outdated ideas, politicians had to maintain their composure. "I don't want our society being ignited by these subjects."

But Sisco Mayor Ange-Pierre Vivoni was adamant his decision was "nothing to do with racism, it's about protecting people's security". Corsica was "sitting on a powder-keg", he said. The ban, which he had considered for some time, was not against Muslims but aimed at protecting people of North African descent as much as anyone else.

The mayors who imposed burkini bans in Cannes and Villeneuve-Loubet are both in the right-wing Republicans (LR) party, while Vivoni is, like the women's rights minister, a Socialist.

On Sunday a crowd of more than 200 Corsicans tried to march on a housing estate - Lupino - on the southern edge of Bastia, but were blocked by police. The Muslim families of North African origin were believed to be from Lupino.

There were scuffles with police, and some in the crowd chanted "This is our home!", France's Le Monde daily reported (in French). Finally the crowd dispersed.