LONDON: Six women have been expelled from a swimming pool in the French city of Grenoble and fined for wearing “burkini” full-body bathing suits.
They wore the suits in a protest against anti-Muslim discrimination in France. The women were among a group of 30 from Citizen Alliance, an activist group that staged the protest in order to push Grenoble’s Mayor Eric Piolle to lift a ban on the burkini in public pools.
Burkinis are banned in most French public pools and on some beaches for reasons of hygiene, but civil rights activists have criticized the ban as discriminatory and Islamophobic.
Men are also subject to clothing restrictions; they are barred from wearing shorts and must instead wear tighter trunks.
One of the Grenoble pool protesters, Naima, said it was the first time that she had bathed in a public pool for 10 years.
“It was 20 minutes of happiness. People applauded when we went into the water with our covering swimsuits,” she added.
Annabelle Bretton, a deputy mayor of Grenoble, said she had met the protesters and told them that the city will continue to require compliance with the hygiene rules. “They want us to change but it’s not on the agenda,” she added.
The burkini issue pertains to a wider debate in French society over the public expression of religion, in particular for France’s millions of Muslims, who make up around 9 percent of the population, according to research conducted by Pew in 2017.
The debate follows announcements by President Emmanuel Macron earlier this year that he would seek to curb Muslim “separatism” in French society, which he said is antithetical to the values of the secular republic.
Piolle has written to Macron requesting national guidelines for what is acceptable swimwear. The mayor asked the government to “set all the criteria to be used for banning swimwear, including size, material and the surface in contact with the water.”
French public opinion strongly supports a ban on the Muslim swimwear, polls suggest, but Citizen Alliance notes that covering swimsuits are allowed in Rennes, capital of the French region of Brittany, and in public pools in Germany, Britain, Italy and Norway.
They also pointed to a ruling by the deputy national ombudsman, George Pau-Langevin, that found banning the swimwear amounts to discrimination.
“Since they are designed for bathing, neither the security nor the hygiene of bathers appear on the face of it to be threatened,” Pau-Langevin said.
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Burkini protest lands French swimmers fines, pool expulsions
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Burkini protest lands French swimmers fines, pool expulsions
- France’s millions of Muslim women are banned from wearing full-body covering swimsuits in many public pools, beaches
- Critics of the ban say it is discriminatory, serves no material purpose
Burkina jihadist attacks on army leave at least 10 dead
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast: Suspected Islamist militants attacked an army unit in northern Burkina Faso Sunday, the latest in a series of alleged jihadist attacks that have killed at least 10 people in four days, security sources told AFP.
The west African country, ruled by a military junta since a 2022 coup, has been plagued with violence from militants allied to Al-Qaeda or the Daesh group for more than a decade.
Social media has been awash with speculation that the spate of attacks may have killed dozens of soldiers, but AFP has been unable to independently verify those claims.
The junta, which seized power on the promise to crack down on the violence, has ceased to communicate on jihadist attacks.
On Sunday, militants carried out a major attack on a military detachment in the northern town of Nare, two security sources told AFP.
The previous day, the Burkinabe army’s unit in the northern city of Titao was “targeted by a group of several hundred terrorists,” one of the sources said.
While the source did not give a death toll for either attack, they said part of the military base in Titao had been destroyed.
The interior minister of Ghana, which borders Burkina Faso to the south, said the government had “received disturbing information from Burkina Faso of a truck carrying tomato traders from Ghana which was caught in a terrorist attack in Titao.”
Jihadist ‘coordination’
According to the same security source, another army base in Tandjari, in the east of the country, was also attacked Saturday, and several officers killed.
“This series of attacks is not a coincidence,” the source said. “There seems to be coordination among the jihadists.”
A separate security source told AFP that a “terrorist group attacked the (military) detachment in Bilanga,” in the east of the country, on Thursday.
“Much of the detachment was ransacked,” the source said, giving a toll of “about 10 deaths” among the soldiers and civilian volunteers fighting alongside the army.
A local source confirmed the attack, adding there was damage in the town of Bilanga, and that the assailants had stayed at the scene until the following day.
Despite the junta’s vow to restore security, Burkina Faso remains caught in a spiral of violence.
According to conflict monitor ACLED, the unrest has killed tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers since 2015 — and more than half of those deaths have come in the past three years.
The west African country, ruled by a military junta since a 2022 coup, has been plagued with violence from militants allied to Al-Qaeda or the Daesh group for more than a decade.
Social media has been awash with speculation that the spate of attacks may have killed dozens of soldiers, but AFP has been unable to independently verify those claims.
The junta, which seized power on the promise to crack down on the violence, has ceased to communicate on jihadist attacks.
On Sunday, militants carried out a major attack on a military detachment in the northern town of Nare, two security sources told AFP.
The previous day, the Burkinabe army’s unit in the northern city of Titao was “targeted by a group of several hundred terrorists,” one of the sources said.
While the source did not give a death toll for either attack, they said part of the military base in Titao had been destroyed.
The interior minister of Ghana, which borders Burkina Faso to the south, said the government had “received disturbing information from Burkina Faso of a truck carrying tomato traders from Ghana which was caught in a terrorist attack in Titao.”
Jihadist ‘coordination’
According to the same security source, another army base in Tandjari, in the east of the country, was also attacked Saturday, and several officers killed.
“This series of attacks is not a coincidence,” the source said. “There seems to be coordination among the jihadists.”
A separate security source told AFP that a “terrorist group attacked the (military) detachment in Bilanga,” in the east of the country, on Thursday.
“Much of the detachment was ransacked,” the source said, giving a toll of “about 10 deaths” among the soldiers and civilian volunteers fighting alongside the army.
A local source confirmed the attack, adding there was damage in the town of Bilanga, and that the assailants had stayed at the scene until the following day.
Despite the junta’s vow to restore security, Burkina Faso remains caught in a spiral of violence.
According to conflict monitor ACLED, the unrest has killed tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers since 2015 — and more than half of those deaths have come in the past three years.
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