French pool bans 'burkini' swim
French pool bans 'burkini' swim
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8197917.stm
French officials have banned a Muslim woman from swimming in a public pool while wearing a swimsuit that covers her entire body.The woman had swum in July in the pool in Emerainville, east of Paris, in the "burkini" - a loose-fitting garment resembling a wetsuit with a hood.
But staff stopped her from swimming in August, citing hygiene concerns.
It comes as the government examines ways to limit burka use after the president said they reduced dignity.
France is home to Western Europe's largest population of Muslims, with about 5 million living there.
At the pool, staff "reminded [the woman] of the rules that apply in all (public) swimming pools which forbid swimming while clothed," pool management official Daniel Guillaume was quoted by AFP as saying.
The woman was a French convert to Islam, and had bought the swimsuit in Dubai so that she would not have to uncover herself to go swimming.
"Quite simply, this is segregation," she said, according to Le Parisien newspaper, which identified her only as Carole.
"I will fight to try to change things. And if I see that the battle is lost, I cannot rule out leaving France."
Emerainville Mayor Alain Kelyor said "all this has nothing to do with Islam", adding that the swimsuit was "not an Islamic swimsuit" and that "that type of suit does not exist in the Koran".
'Prisoners behind netting'
In June the French National Assembly appointed 32 MPs to a six-month fact-finding mission to look at ways of restricting burka use.
In a major policy speech that month, President Nicolas Sarkozy said the burka - a garment covering women from head to toe - reduced them to servitude and undermined their dignity.
"We cannot accept to have in our country women who are prisoners behind netting, cut off from all social life, deprived of identity," Mr Sarkozy told a special session of parliament in Versailles.
In 2004, France banned the Islamic headscarves in its state schools.
Isn't France supposed to be the birth place of liberty?
lol, so like, the idea that Muslim women need a voice and liberation is not at all incorrect, but didn't America's little incursion into the Middle East sort of prove it isn't wise to try and force these things on people?
Looking at the story, the woman almost assuredly feels that the Burka is her choice, which in a free country it should be.
A good image of what the "burkini" looks like:
http://matin.branchez-vous.com/nouvelles/upload/2008/08/burkini.jpg
Not that it really matters, but I used to be a lifeguard, and in my expert opinion, that constitutes a bathing suit.