The people of the French island of Corsica are tough and proud. However, even though they gave France an emperor in the shape of Napoleon Bonaparte, one of the world's greatest generals, they have never really reconciled themselves to French rule. Their language, Corse, is more related to Italian than French and for years an independence movement has pursued a violent but desultory campaign against French rule. Now Corsica has thrown down the gantlet over the so-called burkini, the discrete full-body swimwear preferred by Muslim women. Last month France's highest court ruled that bans on the garment imposed in 30 towns on the Mediterranean coast were illegal. Nevertheless, a court in the port of Bastia, the island's second largest city has ruled that Corsica's ban should stay. It has used the loophole that the wearing of burkinis was likely to produce a public disturbance and should therefore be stopped. As evidence to back this view, the court mentioned a beach brawl in August between Muslim families and local youths that resulted in the injury of five people. What the judgment overlooked was the fact that the fight on an isolated beach was clearly motivated by racists. Thus by actually promoting a public disturbance, the bigots have won a ruling which reinforces their Islamophobia. This is not the way the law should be working. There have been suggestions that future trouble could be avoided if Muslims were allocated special beaches where they could wear their chosen covering. However, this apparently reasonable compromise is in many ways worse than the ban itself because it would separate insidiously French citizens from each other. It is not a long leap to see other discriminatory rules, which would forbid Muslims from other public areas, very possibly for reasons other than their dress. Would there be park benches and seats on public transport saying ‘no Muslims" just as in Nazi Germany there were "No Jews" signs and even in 1960's American southern states, "No Blacks". There is good reason to believe that Corsican nationalists are behind the hard line being taken by the authorities in the island, which poses a direct challenge to the French government in Paris. In elections last year, nationalists parties won the largest number of seats, though they are split between those who want full independence and those seeking to boost Corsican culture and historic inheritance. The almost 10,000 Muslims in Corsica, many of them of Algerian and Tunisian origin, are full citizens. There is only a small number of migrants who have found their way there. But on an island of only 326,000 inhabitants, strangers stick out and with Corsica's traditions of clan rivalries and banditry, violence is never far from the surface. Nevertheless, the French government cannot allow the Bastia burkini ban to stand. It should rather insist that the police on the island enforce proper public order. No arrests have yet been made following August's beach brawl. Yet gendarmes do not arrest women on French beaches for full or partial nudity, even though this offends many people, not just Muslims and it could be argued is an act just as likely to cause a breach of the peace as wearing a burkini. This is a blatant case of double standards, which brings shame on the Corsicans and a major affront to French justice as well.
