LONDON, Aug 25 (Reuters) - Some 35 Muslim and non-Muslim women held a beach party demonstration outside the French embassy in London on Thursday, protesting against a ban on burkinis enforced in some coastal towns in France.
Wearing bikinis and burkinis, the women sat on a pile of sand and played with beach balls in front of the embassy, some holding signs reading "Islamophobia is not freedom" and "Let them wear what they want".
The protest was organised by two friends following the publication of a photograph of armed French police apparently telling a woman sitting on a beach to remove part of her burkini.
"It is never right to tell a woman what she can wear or to take her clothes off. That is not for a man to say," India Thorogood, one of the organisers, said.
"We wanted to show solidarity with Muslim women in France and call for a repeal of the ban."
In 1907, Australian swimming athlete Annette Kellerman was arrested for wearing a fitted one-piece swimsuit on the beach in Poland. Annette Kellerman has designed her famous swimsuit to allow for serious athletic swimming, unlike conventional women's swimwear of the period, but it’s form fitting appearance was considered indecent by some, and it also showed her arms, legs and neck. She changed the suit to have long arms and legs and a collar, but still kept the close fit that revealed the shapes underneath. She later starred in several movies, including one about her life, and marketed a line of bathing suits - known as "the Annette Kellerman," considered the most offensive style of swimsuit in the 1920s and the focus of censorship efforts.
In the early 1920s swimsuits still had to be of a suitable length - and you did get measured!
Here in North Queensland the only safe way to swim in summer is to wear stinger suits - swimwear that covers your whole body – much like Annettes Kellerman’s suit. Of course new materials, such as lycra, make these much more comfortable than Annette's suit would have been. The bonus is that they also protect you from the sun!
On Friday afternoon, France’s highest administrative court suspended a burkini ban in the Côte d’Azur town of Villeneuve-Loubet. This will set a precedent for the other beach-spots, mostly on the Côte d’Azur, where local mayors had controversially issued decrees against full-body swimsuits. Those mayors will now have to decide whether to withdraw the decrees, or keep their bans in place and face further legal action from human rights groups.
The row has caused political divisions in France, with the Socialist prime minister, Manuel Valls, supporting the bans and his education minister, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, saying they were “letting loose” racist rhetoric.
