Photographs have emerged of armed French police confronting a woman on a beach and making her remove some of her clothing as part of a controversial ban on the burkini.
Authorities in several French towns have implemented bans on the garment,which covers the body and head, citing concerns about religious clothing in the wake of recent terrorist killings in the country.
The images of police confronting the woman in Nice on Tuesday show at least four police officers standing over a woman who was resting on the shore at the town’s Promenade des Anglais, the scene of last month’s Bastille Day lorry attack.
After they arrive, she appears to remove a blue long-sleeved tunic, although one of the officers appears to take notes or issue an on-the-spot fine.
The photographs emerged as a mother of two also told on Tuesday how she had been fined on the beach in nearby Cannes wearing leggings, a tunic and a headscarf.
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Nice has become the latest French seaside resort to ban the burkini, an issue that has sparked heated debate in secular France. Using language similar to bans imposed in a string of other towns on the French Riviera, the city barred apparel that “overtly manifests adherence to a religion at a time when France and places of worship are the target of terrorist attacks”.
The wording of the ban in Nice refers specifically to last month’s Bastille Day attack that claimed 86 lives as well as the murder of a Catholic priest near the northern city of Rouen 12 days later. Besides Nice and Cannes 14 other towns in the southeast, as well as others elsewhere in France, have already banned the burkini.
Courtesy: The Guardian
