Corsica remains tense after clashes injure five

The French island of Corsica has banned burqinis following a violent clash between North Africans and locals which saw a man harpooned for taking a picture of women wearing the garments.

Mayor Pierre-Ange Vivoni of Sisco said the full-body swimsuit worn by some Muslim women would be banned in the area from Tuesday, reports the Telegraph.

A girl who witnessed Saturday’s clashes, speaking to Sunday’s rally through a megaphone, said they began after tourists took photos of several women bathing in burqinis. Stones and bottles were thrown. Five people were injured, including a pregnant woman, according to local authorities.

On Monday regional leaders Gilles Simeoni and Jean-Guy Talamoni, both members of the main Corsican nationalist party, called for “calm and the rejection of any inappropriate reaction” in a joint statement, adding that the tension that has arisen from the incident “should not rebound on the north African-origin population, the great majority of whom respect our values”.

Accompanied by the usual Islamic war cry of “Allah hu ackbar”, Muslims in Corsica attacked locals for taking photos of a public beach. In retaliation, villagers then set fire to cars belonging to the bathers, it is claimed.

There were scuffles with police, and some in the crowd chanted “This is our home!”, France’s Le Monde daily reported (in French).

Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, condemned the violence in Sisco.

In December, protesters vandalised a Muslim prayer hall and trashed copies of the Koran after an assault on firefighters that was blamed on youths of Arab origin.

At the end of last month, an outlawed Corsican paramilitary group warned Islamist militants against targeting their island.

The ban against burkinis in Corsica comes on the heels of France issuing a ban against the suits in the coastal town of Cannes, making Corsica the third French town to ban the controversial swimwear (Villeneuve-Loubet, another resort town on the French Riviera, banned the suits, as well).

The brawl on Saturday, one day after a local ban on wearing the Islamic beachwear in Cannes was upheld by a court, was reportedly triggered by a tourist in Corsica photographing Muslims wearing the costumes.