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AP/Press Association Images

Nice finally drops burkini ban after court ruling

Nice and several other towns had ignored the ruling and kept their bans in place in the midst of a raging debate over religious clothing in secular France.

A NICE COURT finally suspended the burkini ban after authorities in the French Riviera resort had defied a ruling by the country’s highest administrative court.

Judges in Nice said the 14 July terror attack on the French Riviera city gave insufficient grounds to justify such a ban.

The decision follows last week’s ruling by France’s highest administrative court to suspend the bans introduced by around 30 towns, mainly in the sun-drenched southeast.

Nice and several other towns had ignored the ruling and kept their bans in place in the midst of a raging debate over religious clothing in secular France.

Nice was one of the first French towns to ban the Islamic swimsuit this summer, with city authorities claiming there was a risk to public order from wearing the garment after a jihadist in a truck ploughed into crowds on the city’s waterfront, killing 86 people.

But the city’s administrative court ruled: “In the absence of such risks, the emotions and the concerns resulting from terrorist attacks, and especially from the attack on July 14, are insufficient grounds to legally justify the contested ban.”

The court also found that burkinis posed no risk to “hygiene, decency or safety when swimming”.

The emotive issue of the burkini was further inflamed last week when photographs taken on a beach in Nice showed police surrounding a woman in a headscarf and a long-sleeved top.

Nice authorities denied the woman had been forced to remove clothing. They told AFP she was showing police the swimsuit she was wearing under her top, over a pair of leggings, when the picture was taken.

At least 30 fines have been issued in Nice since the burkini ban was introduced.

France’s Human Rights League and an anti-Islamophobia group challenged the ban.

© AFP 2016 

Read: Man shoots three people, including two police officers, in Copenhagen

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    Dec 25th 2015, 12:22 AM

    Happy Christmas everyone

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    Dec 25th 2015, 1:29 AM

    Hope you post some news tomorrow (or rather today) as it is just another day for some of us (no choice) Hate Christmas it reminds me of all the good people that have died…..

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    Dec 24th 2015, 11:34 PM

    “toed by swimmers “?

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    Dec 24th 2015, 9:06 PM

    About 100 cars up on footpaths and on double yellow lines onNewtown Park Ave at the Catholic Church, in Sandymount at the mosque about 40 cars clamped last year for parking outside their place of worship. Seems rather unchristian. Donnybrook church is worse as people park on the duel carriage way and not one clamp. They probably speak Irish – is that the trick or have the Clampers been told to clamp Muslims?

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    Dec 25th 2015, 12:38 AM

    Just watched that thing about dunphy ,which ye laughed at. shame . The man has a heart ,he speaks his mind just doesn’t know how to deliver it. incase he loses the job .

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