Interior minister intervenes on swimwear rules

For ten days, women in Grenoble in eastern France were allowed to wear burkinis in public swimming pools - until France's top administrative court overturned the city council's decision to allow this. It emerged that France's Interior Minister Darmanin had instructed the local prefect to weigh in against the decision. Media outlets voice annoyance at how the burkini controversy is dragging on in secular France.

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L'Opinion (FR) /

Please don't make such a fuss!

This controversy should be settled once and for all, L'Opinion stresses:

“The city of Grenoble has announced its intention to appeal to the Conseil d'Etat, which has already had to rule on anti-burkini decrees for beaches on the Côte d'Azur, which it overturned. The advocates of religious neutrality in public spaces and those who defend freedom of religious expression in these same spaces are still at each other's throats. Must lawmakers be called in? Let's spare ourselves a parliamentary debate about the size of swimming costumes, because only one factor must take precedence: respect for public order. This is a question that must be answered with a little legislation and a lot of common sense.”

La Tribune (FR) /

Islamism not an argument against burkinis

The argument that burkinis might strengthen Islamism is absurd, economist Thierry Aimar writes in La Tribune:

“You don't forbid people from eating in Chinese restaurants under the pretext that they could be expressing their support for Beijing's policy towards the Uyghurs by doing so. ... Similarly, the fact that some fanatics in Afghanistan or Iran oppress and massacre women in the name of Islam is no reason to prevent Muslims in the West from wearing a burkini if they feel like it.”