PARIS: France's highest administrative court on Friday suspended a ban on full-body "burkini" swimsuits that has outraged Muslims and opened divisions within the government, pending a definitive ruling.
The Conseil d'Etat issued the ruling following a request from the League of Human Rights to overturn the burkini ban in the Mediterranean town of Villeneuve-Loubet on the grounds that it contravenes civil liberties.
The court said in a statement that the decree to ban burkinis in Villeneuve-Loubet "seriously, and clearly illegally, breached the fundamental freedoms to come and go, the freedom of beliefs and individual freedom".
Under the French legal system, temporary decisions can be handed down before the court takes more time to prepare a judgement on the underlying legality of the case.
A lawyer for the League of Human Rights said the decision should set a legal precedent for the whole country.
Patrice Spinosi told reporters that other mayors who have banned burkinis must conform to Friday's decision. He also said that women who had already received fines could protest them based on Friday's decision.
"It is a decision that is meant to set legal precedent,'' he said. "Today all the ordinances taken should conform to the decision of the Council of State. Logically the mayors should withdraw these ordinances. If not legal actions could be taken'' against those towns.
However, the mayor of Sisco in northern Corsica insisted he would not lift the ban in his community. Ange-Pierre Vivoni had banned the burkini after an Aug 13 clash on a beach in Sisco.
"Here the tension is very, very strong and I won't withdraw it,'' he said in a radio interview.
He conceded he did not know whether a woman was actually wearing a burkini the day a clash occurred that set a group of sunbathers of North African origin, from another town, against villagers from Sisco.
It took days to untangle the events leading to the violence that many immediately assumed was over a burkini siting.
The ban, which has spread to more than a dozen coastal towns, has exposed cracks within the Socialist government as Prime Minister Manuel Valls defended it while some ministers criticised it.
The issue has also shone a light on the difficulties experienced by secular France in responding to homegrown jihadists and foreign militants following Islamist attacks in Nice and a Normandy church in July.
It has also made French cultural identity a hot-button issue along with security in political debates as the country switches into campaign mode ahead of a presidential election next April.