The agenda of the municipal council scheduled for Monday, May 16 in Grenoble providing for a modification of the internal regulations of the city’s public swimming pools is controversial. The environmentalist mayor and his majority wish in particular to authorize swimming in a burkini, a swimsuit covering the whole body. “If I had been elected, I would have banned the burkini in swimming pools without any difficulty, moreover it is currently prohibited in swimming pool regulations”protested the RN presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen, questioned Wednesday, May 11, on RTL.
The mayor of Grenoble Eric Piolle, however, assures not to invent anything. “In Rennes, this was done four years ago by a socialist mayor supported by deputies of the Republic on the move. And it poses no problem four years later”he argued Thursday, May 12, on France 2.
Eric Piolle is right. In Rennes, the municipality effectively modified the internal regulations of swimming pools in 2018 to no longer impose standard bathing attire. It is therefore indeed possible to swim in a burkini in the swimming pools of Rennes, as reported by several articles in the local daily newspaper. West France. Where Marine Le Pen is not entirely wrong is that there are many swimming pools in which the internal regulations do not allow swimming with a burkini.
Users of public services are not subject to neutrality. They therefore have the perfect right to wear an outfit manifesting a religious affiliation within a public service establishment. “Users of the public service have the right to express their religious (or other) convictions within the limits of respect for their proper functioning and the imperatives of safety, health and hygiene”, explains in particular a document available on the government website. On the other hand, swimming pools can impose regulatory outfits to comply with health and safety conditions, recalls the former rapporteur of the Observatory of secularism, Nicolas Cadene. It is only for this reason that mayors can decide to ban the burkini in swimming pools.
Thus, if in Rennes the city no longer imposes a standard swimsuit, its internal regulations specify that “bathing suits must also comply with safety and hygiene requirements. In order to preserve the quality of bathing water, they must imperatively be in a fabric designed specifically for this use and must not have been worn before entering the swimming pool. In addition, article 6 of this same regulation lists a series of obligations that bathers must respect. “under penalty of exclusion”. So to access the pools you must also “take a shower with shampoo and obligatory soaping”.