The French government has defended municipal bans on body-covering Muslim burkini swimwear but called on mayors to try and cool tensions between communities.
.... The burkini debate is particularly sensitive in France given deadly attacks by Islamist militants, including bombings and shootings in Paris which killed 130 people last November, which have raised tensions between communities and made people wary of public places.
The socialist government's minister for women's rights, Laurence Rossignol, said municipal bans on the burkini should not be seen in the context of terrorism but she supported the bans.
"The burkini is not some new line of swimwear, it is the beach version of the burqa and it has the same logic: hide women's bodies in order to better control them," Rossignol told French daily Le Parisien in an interview.
.... France, which has the largest Muslim minority in Europe, estimated at 5 million, in 2010 introduced a ban on full-face niqab and burqa veils in public.
Rossignol said the burkini had sparked tensions on French beaches because of its political dimension.
"It is not just the business of those women who wear it, because it is the symbol of a political project that is hostile to diversity and women's emancipation," she said. [Reuters] Read more
