Reactions are accumulating regarding Eric Piolle and the burkini. When essayist Zineb El Rhazoui was asked by Le Figaro about the permission to wear burkini in public swimming pools in Grenoble, she said that this decision was “a terrible step backwards for French women” and also “a great march-through of Islamist ideology”. She condemned “the intention of the Islamist activists behind this initiative (…) to impose the visual marking of Muslim women in all spaces that are still spared from it.”
Journalist Zineb El Rhazoui, who was at times considered as a candidate for the presidential elections, considered that “the obsession with covering women’s bodies” was strong among “Muslim fundamentalists”. When asked to respond to the Grenoble mayor’s statement in favour of the burkinis, she said she was “not surprised by such a decision, because when the separatist activism of an association like Alliance citoyenne meets the electoral clientelism displayed by EELV mayor Éric Piolle, social harmony goes back in favour of religious communitarianism”.
In her interview with Le Figaro, the former Charlie Hebdo journalist also complained that “the fight against Islamism and for equal rights for women and men is reduced to considerations of political groups”. In her opinion, the challenge in the fight against Islamism is “to push back this deadly and freedom-robbing ideology without compromising democracy”.
