Rabat - The French town of Cannes has officially confirmed its burkini ban by issuing fines to Muslim beachgoers.
Rabat – The French town of Cannes has officially confirmed its burkini ban by issuing fines to Muslim beachgoers.
Three women who were swimming in the Bay of Cannes wearing swimwear which only revealed their face, hands and feet were fined 38 Euros each and told to leave beach, Le Parisien reported.
Six other women “bathing while covered” were also reminded of the ban and asked to leave the beach.
“They left the beach without difficulty,” said a spokesman of David Lisnard, Mayor of Cannes. The burkini, worn by Muslim women to maintain their religious obligation to cover their bodies, has been a focal point for many French towns.
Cannes was the first town to enact the burkini ban earlier this month. Now five towns have banned the burkini while three others are in the process of doing so, the New York Times reports.
What a women should wear at a French beach has led to heated debates and conflicts.
A violent brawl between Corsican Christians and Muslims of mostly North African origin broke out on the beaches of the Pas-de-Calais along the shores of the Mediterranean over the weekend.
“I want to send a message to anyone who might be tempted to wear this type of outfit,” warned Daniel Fasquelle, a member of France’s National Assembly. “They will not be well received.”.
Omar Kzabri, Imam of the Hassan II mosque in Casablanca on his Facebook page that people behind the phenomenon of “nakedness” have an agenda to obliterate Muslim values and principles.
Kzabri said “pro-nakedness individuals” feel embarrassed by “decent women who wear hijab and veil.”
But some say the ban on the burkini in France is a direct result of terrorist acts.
In July, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel careened a truck through a crowd at a Bastille Day fireworks display in the town of Nice killing 85 people. Cannes is less than 20 miles from Nice.
“Enough is enough,” writes Marine le Pen leader of the extreme-right National Front.
The National Front seeks to maintain the secular values of French culture and is stridently anti-immigrant in its political platform. Le Pen feels that openly wearing a burkini which shows religious affiliation should be prohibited.
“France does not lock away a woman’s body. France does not hide half of its population under the fallacious and hateful pretext that the other half it will be tempted, le Pen writes in her blog post entitled, Behind the Burkini.
France has banned the full-face veil, called a “niqab” or “burka” in a controversial ruling since 2004.
