In the News: Elected Women Against the Burquini

Burkini : l’Association des femmes élues de l’Isère “lance un cri d’alarme” (Burkini: The Association of Elected Women of Isère Sounds the Alarm), ledauphine.com, 2019-07-06.

An association of elected women from the French region of Isère, which includes the city of Grenoble, has sounded the alarm about the burquini issue. Grenoble has been the scene of a recent push by Islamists and their allies to allow the burquini in swimming pools. In defiance of basic rules of hygiene, the Islamists demand the privilege of a religion exemption (although they and their allies disingenuously call it a “right”).

The association asserts that gender equality, although inscribed in the French constitution, is under threat. Attempts to impose veils and ultra-covering outfits in municipal swimming pools in defiance of regulations is an example of that threat.”

The elected women further assert that the purpose of these attacks is to destabilize and weaken the principles and laws of the Republic, which have allowed women to attain the status of full citizenship, equal to men. “Religion should be lived in the private sphere. Whenever it exhibits itself, it does so for political purposes.” The association calls for mayors and other local and national elected officials to be vigilant in exercising their duties.

The women of this association have understood that the campaign to impose the burquini has a purely political goal: to trivialize and normalize the practices promoted by political Islam with the purpose of weakening both secularism and women’s rights.

The word “burkini” is sometimes written “burqini” or “burquini” in order to clarify that this accoutrement promoted by Islamists is a close derivative of the burqa. Indeed, the burquini is an aquatic version of the burqa. It is a bathing burqa.

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