Sandy protest outside the French Embassy in London

UPDATE: France’s highest court has suspended the ban imposed in certain French towns against the wearing of the Burkini. In its judgement it stated that the ban “seriously and clearly illegally breached fundamental freedoms to come and go, freedom of beliefs and individual freedom”.

This is an observation in order to suspend the ban, but the court will make a final ruling in due course.

IN an event that is almost Orwellian in its logic, demonstrators in London threw a beach party outside the French Embassy on August 25 to protest about the French ban on the Burkini with law officers in the South of France insisting that Muslim women should remove their clothes as by covering up, they were upsetting French culture.

This surprise event took place at around midday when a van drew up outside of the Embassy and discharged bags of sand, deckchairs and an inflatable lobster whilst some of the 40 or so protestors paraded in front of somewhat surprised police officers, some wearing Burkinis.

Having made their point, the protestors cleared up after themselves and removed all of the sand as they had reportedly been threatened with being charged by an official from the Embassy, although how the French would be able to control the pavement has not been explained.

From the protestors point of view, they had made their point, even though it was in a country that doesn’t ban the Burkini and most people probably can’t see the difference between that garment and a wet suit!

It would appear that so far more than 20 women have been censored in Nice alone for wearing the Burkini and it certainly seems that the activity by French police will do little to foster closer relationships between Muslims and others in the French community especially as one person observed that the police would be unlikely to arrest a nun wearing her habit on a beach.

It will be interesting to see the results of a case against the ban which will be heard shortly in the French Council of State, where it will have to rule on whether the ban is actually illegal.