First Muslim women fined for wearing a BURKINI – in French glamour town Cannes

August 18, 2016

From the Express

THREE Muslim women have been fined for wearing a ‘burkini’ to a beach in Cannes, the first city to ban the Islamic garment this summer. The women had been bathing in burkinis at a beach in Cannes, one of the most up-market resorts on the French Riviera.

They are the first to be fined for wearing the now banned swimsuit, which covers the body, but not the face. The women, aged 29, 32, and 57, were asked to pay a fine of €38 euros each (£33). Six more women were seen wearing the burkini on a Cannes beach, but were not fined after they agreed to leave.

Cannes mayor, David Lisnard, who was the first mayor to ban the burkini back in July, has argued that the beachwear “manifests a religious affiliation and does not respect good morals and secularism.” He added that it was a “risk to public order” as France remains a top Islamic State target.

A total of seven French towns have now banned the burkini : Cannes, Villeneuve-Loubet, Sisco, Le Touquet, Leucate, Oye-Plage, and Mandelieu-la-Napoule, a town on the French Riviera that first banned the full-body garment back in 2013.

Oliver Majewicz, the socialist mayor of Oye-Plage, a town close to Calais and the latest to impose the ban, told French newspaper Le Figaro that not enough had been done to protect France’s secular values and that access to his beaches would be forbidden to anyone whose “choice of clothing did not respect good morals and secularism.”