Nice – Law Street https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com Law and Policy for Our Generation Wed, 13 Nov 2019 21:46:22 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8 100397344 Burkini Ban: Enforcement Starts in Nice and Cannes https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/world-blogs/burkini-ban-enforcement-nice-cannes/ https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/world-blogs/burkini-ban-enforcement-nice-cannes/#respond Wed, 24 Aug 2016 16:56:17 +0000 http://lawstreetmedia.com/?p=55070

Enforcement of the controversial rule beings in French towns.

The post Burkini Ban: Enforcement Starts in Nice and Cannes appeared first on Law Street.

]]>
"Nice beach" courtesy of [Oiva Eskola via Flickr]

Armed police officers forced a Muslim woman to take off her burkini at the beach in Nice, France. In Cannes, another woman was fined for wearing a headscarf and leggings. These are some of the first known examples of enforcement of  a controversial ban on certain beachwear since the ban was implemented in several French towns earlier this month.

Cannes was the first town to impose the ban, which emerged after recent terrorist attacks in France. According to the rule, you cannot visit the beaches in Cannes if you are “wearing improper clothes that are not respectful of good morals and secularism.” The prohibition is widely seen as a restriction of the freedom of religion and expression that is supposed to exist in France.

According to the Telegraph, at least four armed officers approached the burkini-wearing woman on the beach in Nice and didn’t leave until she took her burkini off.

The woman who was fined in Nice said she was wearing a tunic with leggings and a headscarf, sitting on the beach in Cannes with her family with no intention of going swimming. Another beach visitor who witnessed the incident, Mathilde Cousin, said, “The saddest thing was that people were shouting ‘go home,’ some were applauding the police. Her daughter was crying.”

The town of Villeneuve-Loubet was one of the first of some 15 French towns to follow the example set in Cannes, imposing similar beach rules. On Monday, a lower court ruled that the ban is “necessary, appropriate, and proportionate” to uphold public order after recent terrorist attacks. The ruling went on to say that the burkini was “liable to offend the religious convictions or [religious] non-convictions of other users of the beach” as well as “be felt as a defiance or a provocation exacerbating tensions felt by” the community.

The French NGO Human Rights League appealed the decision, saying the ban is a “serious and illegal attack on numerous fundamental rights,” notably freedom of religion.

The controversial ban will come before the highest administrative court in France on Thursday. Meanwhile, the mayor of Villeneuve-Loubet, Lionnel Luca, had another explanation for why he wanted the rule in place. He told Sky News:

I was informed that there was a couple on one of our beaches where the wife was swimming fully dressed… I considered that unacceptable for hygienic reasons and that in general it was unwelcome.

The woman he saw was swimming in the ocean, not a swimming pool. Luca did also not specify whose hygiene he was concerned about.

Emma Von Zeipel
Emma Von Zeipel
Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Burkini Ban: Enforcement Starts in Nice and Cannes appeared first on Law Street.

]]> https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/world-blogs/burkini-ban-enforcement-nice-cannes/feed/ 0 55070 Nice Attack: 84 Dead From Deadly Truck Rampage https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/news/nice-attack-84-dead-deadly-truck-rampage/ https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/news/nice-attack-84-dead-deadly-truck-rampage/#respond Fri, 15 Jul 2016 18:16:09 +0000 http://lawstreetmedia.com/?p=53993

This is the third major terrorist attack in France in 19 months.

The post Nice Attack: 84 Dead From Deadly Truck Rampage appeared first on Law Street.

]]>
"Kenworth K270" Courtesy of [Jason Lawrence via Flickr]

Thursday night in Nice, France, 84 people went to go celebrate Bastille Day and watch the fireworks, but their night ended in tragic death, as the country experienced its third major terror attack in 19 months. More than 200 others were injured–some critically–as a result of Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, 31, the man who is believed to be responsible for driving a large commercial truck over a mile-long stretch along a crowded boulevard, brutally mowing down those in his path.

French officers finally shot and killed Bouhlel outside the Hyatt hotel and casino. Prime Minister Manuel Valls addressed the attack Friday morning after a cabinet meeting. “We will not give in to the terrorist threat. The times have changed, and France is going to have to live with terrorism.”

President François Hollande has extended France’s state of emergency for another three months. Originally, the state of emergency was supposed to be over at the end of the month in the wake of the attacks in and around Paris Nov. 13. He has also called for three days of mourning beginning Saturday, where the flags will fly at half staff. Hollande said he in no way doubts that the attack had ties to terror.

“We have an enemy who is going to continue to strike all the people, all the countries who have freedom as a fundamental value,” Hollande said. “France is afflicted, but she is strong, and she will always be stronger than the fanatics who want to strike her.”

Bouhlel had a history of petty crime, including burglary and theft, but his name was not found on any French terrorist lists. Authorities found a 7.65 mm pistol and several fake grenades and rifles inside the truck. The motives behind the attack are still unclear. Bouhlel was born in a northeastern Tunisian town and moved to France in 2005.

Authorities are slowly beginning to identify those slain in the attack. Among the victims are two Americans—Sean Copeland, 51, and his son, Brodie, 11, of Texas. Bodies still lay in the streets of Nice, as Interpol, an international police organization, said it would deploy a team “to provide disaster victim identification assistance,” on its Twitter.

Cell phone video footage shows the truck rolling purposefully and accelerating towards the crowd of people on Promenade des Anglais, a boulevard in the seaside city just after the fireworks ended. An eye witness also told CNN that the driver was “firing a machine gun while driving,” and those in the streets fled to nearby restaurants for refuge.
 “They didn’t know where to go, they were looking for an exit — they were hoping they’d find an exit out the back. They had to stay there for a couple of hours, but people wouldn’t even come out — they were so frightened — until the police came and said it was OK to come out,” Andy McCardy, the eye witness, said.

The attack took place less than a week after the 2016 Euro Games, where security and police forces took extraordinary precautions to secure the sites. There has been speculation that the suspects connected with the attacks in Paris and Brussels had planned an attack during the tournament, but nothing was executed.

The two presidential hopefuls in the U.S. reacted to the event, each taking different stances on how to combat terrorism. Donald Trump said he would declare war on ISIS, but also tweeted his condolenses to the French.

Hillary Clinton called for better intelligence gathering in order to fight terror groups. Here’s her statement:

Inez Nicholson
Inez Nicholson
Inez is an editorial intern at Law Street from Raleigh, NC. She will be a junior at North Carolina State University and is studying political science and communication media. When she’s not in the newsroom, you can find her in the weight room. Contact Inez at INicholson@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Nice Attack: 84 Dead From Deadly Truck Rampage appeared first on Law Street.

]]> https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/news/nice-attack-84-dead-deadly-truck-rampage/feed/ 0 53993