http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w … 793574.eceFrance's struggle with Islamic dress moved to the swimming pool today after a 35-year-old woman was banned from bathing in the head-to-toe swimsuit known as the "burkini".
The woman, identified only as Carole, was making her third burkini outing to the town pool at Emerainville, in the eastern outskirts of Paris, when the chief lifeguard ordered her to leave.
She was said to be breaking hygiene rules but her ejection was seen as another episode in the battle between fundamentalist Muslims and a state that has banned head cover from schools and may curb face covering in public.
Carole accused the pool of illegal discrimination and immediately contacted police and the media. "Quite simply, this is segregation," she said. "I will fight to try to change things. And if I see that the battle is lost, I cannot rule out leaving France.
Police refused to accept the complaint, on the grounds that the lifeguard was enforcing rules that apply at all French public pools. Women must wear swimsuits and men must wear brief trunks, rather than shorts, which are said to be more likely to harbour bacteria.
Carole, who was born in a traditional French family before converting to Islam at 17, said she had bought her attire on holiday in Dubai.
The burkini, designed by Aheda Zanetti, a Lebanese-Australian, has become popular in the Gulf but has caused controversy in public pools in Europe and North America. The swimsuit leaves the face uncovered but the body is clad in a tracksuit-like tunic and coat. The head and neck are covered with a cross between a hijab and a diver's balaclava helmet.
"I thought that it could enable me to enjoy the pleasure of bathing without uncovering myself, as Islam recommends," she told Le Parisien newspaper. "I understand that it might shock people, but I am annoyed because I have been told that it is a political matter. I didn't set out to cause a stir. My only aim was to be able to go swimming with my children in a swimming pool," Carole said.
She compared her outfit to the neck-to-ankle body-suits favoured by Olympic swimmers. "The only difference is that they go faster than me," she said. However Paris pool officials said that the high-tech body-suits were not allowed during public swimming sessions.
The local authorities insisted that no politics were involved. "The lady was almost fully dressed," Daniel Guillaume, head of sports facilities for the Seine-et-Marne departement, said. "The personnel simply applied the rules that are in effect in all pools in France: you wear a bathing suit and take a shower before entering the water."
Some politicians want tougher measures to oppose a rise in body-covering by more orthodox Islamic women and Muslim demands for sexually segregated sessions at pools and other sports facilities.
"Maybe you can see the woman's face in this ridiculous swimsuit, but it is obviously a provocation by a militant," said André Gerin, a Communist MP from the Rhone area. "These women wearing their camisoles in public want to mark their difference. Going straight to the police station is clear proof that there is a political project behind this outfit," he said. "No doubt this is the start of a new problem."
Mr Gerin heads a 32-member parliamentary enquiry that opened last month to review the possibility of a law to bar Muslim women from wearing the face-covering burka, or niqab, in public.
President Sarkozy stirred fundamentalist anger in June when he sided with the review, saying that such dress was not a symbol of faith but a sign of women's subservience and that it had "no place in France".
At the start of the hearings, two academics described wearing the burka as a throwback to an archaic Islam and a type of cult-like behaviour, incompatible with modern France.
The move to legislate led to fears of a violent response from foreign extremists. "Yesterday it was the hijab and today, it is the niqab," said Abu Musab Abdul Wadud, leader of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb of North Africa.
France caused a stir in the Muslim world in 2004 with a law barring the hijab headscarf and all other religious dress from state primary and secondary schools. The measure, which was implemented without protest, is strongly backed by the public, including a substantial number of the country's six million Muslims.
Last edited by mafia996630 (2009-08-12 15:36:06)
