Authorize the wearing of the burkini in public swimming pools: the city of Grenoble, at the foot of the Alps and led by environmentalists, relaunched the controversy in France on Monday as summer approached on an ultra-sensitive and divisive subject.
The town hall of this city of some 158,000 inhabitants led by the ecologist Éric Piolle wanted to change the dress code in the swimming pools and now authorizes the burkini (a swimsuit covering the body and the head, created in Australia in 2004) , and the monokini.
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The new rules of procedure were validated Monday evening by the municipal council, by a narrow majority (29 votes for, 27 against and two abstentions), after 2 hours 30 minutes of sometimes tense debates.
Mr. Piolle swept aside the objections of the opposition, invoking a “feminist” fight, health and “secularism” because nothing prohibits the wearing of religious clothing in public space, “including at the swimming pool “.
The subject has polarized the French political class for several months. For its opponents, the burkini is a blatant symbol of the oppression of women and is similar to the full veil that the Taliban have just reimposed on women in Afghanistan.
The conservative president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, where Grenoble is located, Laurent Wauquiez, had accused the mayor of Grenoble in early May of “submission to Islamism”, in a country struck down by several Islamist attacks and where the community question rages.
The internal regulations of municipal swimming pools have until now required users to “decent dress” and “a correct attitude”. For hygiene reasons, long shorts are generally prohibited.
From now on, the length of the jerseys will no longer be limited, explained Sports Assistant Céline Mennetrier. It will allow women to bathe topless and all bathers to wear a swimsuit to protect them from the sun.
In France, the burkini has so far only been authorized in the swimming pools of only one other large city, in Rennes (west) since 2018.
In a few weeks, and as the legislative elections on June 12 and 19 approach, the debate on the burkini has turned into a political storm, the two camps clashing with tribunes, petitions and strong positions.
The French state also got involved by letting it be known on Sunday that it would ask the courts to cancel this burkini authorization if it were to be adopted.
The “manifest objective is to yield to communitarian demands with religious aims”, according to a press release from the local representative of the State who adds that the text “appears to contravene the principle of secularism laid down by the law of 1905”.
The mayor of Grenoble is doing “harm” to “republican values” with this “absolutely serious” project, said a spokesperson for President Emmanuel Macron’s party on Monday.
“When you enter a municipal swimming pool, every citizen must respect the rules,” added Prisca Thévenot. However, “there, we would come to derogate from the rule to respond to a religious political will”.
In the other camp, a hundred personalities, including renowned feminists, published a support column: “Muslim women have as much place in the swimming pool” as other citizens and “no one should be stigmatized even in the pools because of his choice of shirt”.
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The text was written by the controversial Alliance Citoyenne association, organizer of several punch operations in Grenoble swimming pools in favor of the wearing of the burkini, since May 2019.
Founded in 2012 in Grenoble, Alliance Citoyenne is now present in other French cities, and supports the collective of veiled football players the “Hijabeuses”, mobilized against the French Football Federation (FFF), which prohibits the wearing of competitive sailing.
The veil is a recurring subject of tension for French society, while the population of Muslim faith or tradition on its metropolitan territory has increased very sharply since the post-war period, to reach nearly 9% of the population.
Reference-www.tvanouvelles.ca