“The Council of State will have to be at the forefront of the notion of secularism”, said this Wednesday on franceinfo the lawyer specializing in the law of fundamental freedoms Patrice Spinosi. The city of Grenoble announced, through the voice of its mayor Eric Piolle on Twitter, that it was going to appeal the decision of the administrative court to suspend the provision authorizing the wearing of the burkini in the municipal swimming pools of the municipality. “A rather creative decision”believes Patrice Spinosi who notes that the court could have been seized thanks to a secularism summary “which is a creation of the separatism law.”
franceinfo: what do you think of this decision of the administrative court?
Patrice Spinosi: It’s a pretty creative decision. One could think that the recourse of the ministry was rather fanciful and that the question of secularism was not intended to apply to the users of a swimming pool. In any case, this was the meaning of the case law of the Council of State, but the administrative tribunal went further by considering that, from the moment the common rule was changed for religious reasons, there was an infringement the principle of public service neutrality. We will see what the position of the Council of State will be.
Was it the separatism law that allowed this decision, as Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin asserts?
What is certain is that the ministry has filed a secularism summary which is a creation of the separatism law and which allows the State to act very quickly against acts that would seriously undermine secularism.
“The whole question is therefore whether or not there is this attack on the principle of secularism.”
Patrice Spinosi, lawyerat franceinfo
The administrative court has decided but now the Council of State will be seized and will have to revise in one way or another the solution rendered by the court.
What can we expect from the Council of State?
Since the decision of the administrative court is generally new, it will push the Council of State to adopt a fairly advanced position on the notion of secularism. We will see if he is ready to go that far or if he will remain on a classic approach as in previous decisions on the burkini. At the time, the Council of State had considered that in any case, it was not possible to ban the burkini in public space. It was then a question of bans on the beaches by a certain number of municipalities in the South. The question which will certainly be asked and which was decisive for the administrative court, is whether there was a specific desire on the part of the city of Grenoble to authorize the burkini for religious reasons.