Burkini ban ignorant

A burkini ban is unlikely at Castlecliff Beach.

Interrupt me if you believe differently, but I don't think we're going to see a burkini (or burqini) ban at Castlecliff Beach any day soon.
Aside from the fact we're a tolerant bunch, accepting of all cultures and their peculiarities - heck, we've even welcomed British immigrants and their odd concepts of land ownership and Maori spelling - we probably won't see too many people modelling Muslim swimwear this summer.
If we did, would we get upset about it? Probably not. That would be like taking umbrage at a surfer in a wetsuit or someone wearing a T-shirt in the water. The former's beliefs urge him/her to respect the cold and the latter possibly is exhibiting nothing but shyness.
So to see hulking great gendarmes forcing a woman to undress on a French beach is something we should not be comfortable with. If someone not in uniform did it those same gendarmes would be charging them with some form of molestation.
So why is France so preoccupied with the female Muslim wardrobe, particularly - but not confined to - beachwear?
A woman in a burkini (that's not an official name, but it has caught on) is obeying her religion's edicts on personal propriety while still allowing herself a dip in the ocean. That's all she's doing. She is not thumbing her nose at the French tradition of wearing as little as possible on the beach, nor is she wilfully waving Islam in everyone's faces.
I get that France has been under attack from Muslim extremists and that terrorism is a constant threat and fear, but what has that got to do with a woman preserving her modesty? If anything, the outlaw mayors who are insisting on the burkini ban even after their government has reversed it, are poking a wasp's nest by their actions. Sooner or later someone with a gun is going to see a reason to do something stupid and they will find justification in a ridiculous French prejudice.
It has gone too far and reeks of arrogance. To generalise, and I make no apologies for it, the French are renowned for their cultural snobbery and dislike of "foreigners" on their own soil. A woman in a burkini is different and obviously not complying with French customs. She must therefore receive the appropriate hatred in a way no Frenchwoman would tolerate from her own countrymen. To say that the burkini is "not respectful of good morals and secularism" is inviting a lecture on irony.
And to top it off, a Paris restaurant refused to serve Muslim women on the grounds that they were "terrorists". No mate, if they were terrorists they would have done some serious damage. All they did was leave and complain.
The restaurateur's attitude and the burkini ban are not only racist, they are stupid, and they display ignorance we would normally associate with hillbilly stereotypes nowadays confined to fiction.
Islamophobia is not a consequence of terrorist action; it is something that has long been waiting for a chance to reveal itself in all its ugliness. Extremist attacks on France have been nothing more than a handy excuse to apply what is, in reality, a basic infringement of human rights. It's a far cry from the laudable reasons for the French Revolution. Could it all have been a waste of aristocratic blood?
So I don't think the burkini ban is going to happen here, not while we have people swimming in jeans and lying fully dressed on the sand. Would we send the police to undress them? I think not.
But if Donald Trump fails in the US, I can think of at least one nation that would welcome him and his values. All he has to do is learn to speak French - although he would probably demand that the whole country learn to speak American English.