French Riviera burkini ban 'illegal' and 'gift for Isil recruiters' say critics

"Swimwear displaying religious affiliation in an ostentatious way, while France and its religious sites are currently the target of terrorist attacks, could create risks of trouble to public order," it said.

The town hall confirmed that the ordinance, which applies for the whole month of August, means women wearing burkini-style swimsuits face €38 (£32) fines if they refuse to change swimsuit or leave the beach.

Thierry Migoul, head of municipal services for Cannes, said: "We are not talking about banning the wearing of religious symbols on the beach, but ostentatious clothing which refers to an allegiance to terrorist movements which are at war with us."

The mayor added: "I'm simply banning a uniform that is the symbol of Islamist extremism."

He insisted it wasn't the only clothing restriction in force in Cannes, citing a recently decree to outlaw men from "walking around bare-chested in a swimsuit in town".

The mayor of the nearby town of Villeneuve-Loubet, also in the Alpes-Maritimes area, has also introduced a ban on burkinis.

But Muslim and human rights groups slammed the move on Friday, saying it was absurd and illegal.

"This is abuse of the law and we reserve the right to take this to the courts," said Hervé Lavisse, president of the local section of the Human Rights League.

"What next? Morality police like in the land of the Mullahs," he said in a statement to Nice Matin.

A 2011 French law bans women from wearing the full, face-covering veil in public, but this does not apply to burkinis, which normally cover the body but not the face.

Jean-Louis Bianco, president of the "secularism watchdog", a state-funded body, said: "I don"t think that one can invoke the notion of respecting secularism here. What's forbidden is the full veil. The burkini as a garment is not banned."

Mr Bianco said the decree's claim that such clothing poses a "hygiene and public order" issue would have to be "demonstrated under the control of a judge".

Feiza Ben Mohamed, spokeswoman for the Muslims Federation for the South, said: "It's scandalous to suggest this is a public security issue. How is going to the beach in a veil a public security risk? They are mixing up shamefully terrorists with the wider Muslim community."

Besides, she told The Telegraph, hardline Islamists "don't go to the beach because they refuse to mix with other women in bikinis. It penalises normal Muslims, or just mums taking their kids to the beach. 

She added: "This type of row is totally counterproductive and plays into Isil's hands.

"It's exactly what Isil want - the mayor is doing their work for them. Isil seeks to make our young people believe that they are excluded, stigmatised, and they will use such examples in their recruitment drive."

France's Collective against Islamophobia, CCIF, is helping 10 Muslim women bring an urgent legal request to have the ban overturned.

Spokesman Marwan Muhammad said: "These women tell me that as Cannes residents, they feel unfairly treated."

He said he was confident the ban would be overturned within "three or four days", citing a 2014 case in which a court quashed a veil ban on a beach in the Essonne area.

Authorities in Cannes claim they have noticed an upswing in the number of women wearing burkinis on the beach, but admitted none had been spotted since the ban quietly came into force at the start of the month.

Local Muslim associations said any burkinis were most likely worn by holiday-makers from Saudi Arabia who come to the Côte d'Azur in the summer.

The Cannes row came just days after a waterpark near Marseille cancelled a planned "Burkini Day" for Muslim women amid criticism from the Right and death threats sent to the organisers.

Scheduled for September, the event was due to allow only women “covered from the chest to the knees” to take part.

But it attracted fierce political criticism, with Florian Philippot, senior adviser to far-Right Front Front leader Marine Le Pen, saying: “This sort of event should be banned.”

“Accepting this so-called fashion means we accept sectarianism in our country,” said Valérie Boyer, from Nicolas Sarkozy’s Les Républicains and mayor of two Marseille districts.

Smile 13, the association which organised the event, said in a Facebook post that it had received insults and death threats.

The local authority and the waterpark decided to call off the event, saying in a statement that they did not “wish to be the site of public unrest".