French PM: Naked breasts more representative of France than headscarf

The French prime minister has stoked the fierce debate over the burkini by saying that naked breasts are more representative of the country than a headscarf.

Manuel Valls, who has supported mayors who have banned the burkini on French beaches, gave last night a speech in which he celebrated the bare breasts of Marianne, a national symbol of the Republic.

A historian has suggested Valls may have confused Marianne with the subject of this painting (Picture: Alamy)

To rapturous applause from those in attendance at the government rally, Valls said: ‘Marianne has a naked breast because she is feeding the people!

‘She is not veiled, because she is free! That is the republic!’

Valls’s suggestion that bare breasts represented France more closely than the Muslim headscarf was seized upon by critics, who accused him of historical illiteracy.

Mathilde Larrere, a historian of the French revolution, called Valls a ‘cretin’ in a string of tweets in which she also wrote that the sole reason Marianne was female was because the decadent French king was male, and that the use of an exposed breast was ‘just an artistic code’.

‘Marianne has a naked breast because it’s an allegory,’ she tweeted.

The historian Nicolas Lebourg called Valls’s interpretation of Marianne ‘inexact and stunning’, and suggested in an interview with Libération he had confused her with the subject of Eugène Delacroix’s 1830 painting, Liberty Leading the People.

He also described how there have long been two competing representations of Marianne.

One is wise, fully clothed and unarmed and one carries a sword, has an exposed breast and wears a Phrygian bonnet.

French mayor on burkini ban: Muslims must accept our way of life

The Mayor of the French town of Riviera, Marc Etienne Lansade has told Muslim beach goers not to come to his town if they aren't prepared to accept their way of life by not wearing burkinis to beaches.
"If you don't want to live the way we do, don't come. You have to behave in the way that people behave in the country that accepted you, and that is it," Mayor Marc Etienne Lansade told CNN.

"If you are accepted in Rome -- do like Romans do," he said, adding, "go in Saudi Arabia and be naked and see what will happen to you."

Lansade, alongside several other mayors in France maintains that burkinis have been banned in his town despite a ruling by France's highest administrative court that mayors do not have the right to outlaw burkinis.

The court ruling comes after more than 30 French towns banned the burkini, a swimsuit which covers the whole body except for the face, hands and feet and is worn mostly by Muslim women.

 

‘Burkini’ Inventor Says Sales Have Skyrocketed on Heels of Controversy

(NYT)

 

The woman credited with creating the burkini said the controversy over efforts to ban the full-body bathing suit worn by some Muslim women has helped bolster demand for her invention, which she said was not meant to be a political statement.

Aheda Zanetti, the Lebanese-Australian inventor of the swimsuit, said officials in more than a dozen French beach towns seeking to prevent women from covering up have misconstrued the purpose of the bathing suit.

“They’ve misunderstood the burkini swimsuit,” Ms. Zanetti, 49, said in a telephone interview from Sydney. “Because the burkini swimsuit is freedom and happiness and lifestyle changes — you can’t take that away from a Muslim, or any other woman, that chooses to wear it.”

Ms. Zanetti said she designed the garment in 2004 for women who wanted to show less skin while bathing or exercising.

“I wanted to introduce a full range of clothing to suit a Muslim woman — or any woman — that wanted a bit of modesty and wanted to participate in any sporting activities,” said Ms. Zanetti, who is a Muslim and wears her own swimwear products. “It was also my aim for them not to be judged for who they are, or where they’re from, and who people think they’re representing.”

A fashion designer and former hairdresser, Ms. Zanetti coined the name “burkini,” a blend of the words burqa and bikini, but said that the swimsuit was not intended to exclude non-Muslims and was not meant to be a political statement.

The French “burkini” bans, and the news reports about the ensuing debate, have been good for business, she said, with online sales rising about 200 percent in recent days. Most demand is coming from Australia, Europe and Canada, she said, and some new customers include skin-cancer patients who are looking for ways to shield their skin from the sun.

Ms. Zanetti said that her company, Ahiida, has sold 700,000 swimsuits since 2008. The company sells its products in stores in Australia, Europe, the Middle East, the United States and Southeast Asia.

Ms. Zanetti, who moved to Australia from Lebanon as a 2-year-old, said that she did not feel comfortable wearing traditional swimsuits as a young girl. She and her friends would sometimes swim in full clothing, she said, but they did not linger in the water because they were embarrassed.

Years later, she said, her teenage niece wanted to play netball, a game similar to basketball that is played mostly by women, but was prohibited by her local Sydney league from playing while wearing a hijab. Ms. Zanetti said her sister wrote a letter of complaint to league officials, who reversed their decision.

Even so, Ms. Zanetti said that her niece’s hijab was “completely unsuitable” for athletics.

Ms. Zanetti said she designed the “burkini,” which covers everything except the face, hands and feet, so that women like her niece could cover and still participate comfortably in sport. She also created the hijood — headwear attached to the “burkini,” to look like the hood of a sweatshirt.

Ms. Zanetti said that her four children, who once “rolled their eyes” over her swimwear innovations, have recently become more interested as they follow the news from France.

She said that her children have noticed “that I have a strong voice on behalf of women, for freedom of choice, ” she said. “I can feel how proud they are, more than they’ve ever been.”