France fines three Muslim women for wearing banned burkinis in public
BUT French millioniare steps forward and offers to pay their £30 penalties
THREE Muslim women caught wearing banned burkinis in Cannes have been fined - but a millionaire has stepped in to pay up.
The Riviera resort controversially banned the Islamic full-body swim outfits last week claiming they made women wearers "look like terrorists".
Now three women, aged 29, 32, and 57, have all been fined £30 for breaching the new French local council by-law.
But outspoken businessman Rachid Nekkaz stepped in to pay the fines as he believes the ban is in breach of "religious and human rights".
Nekkaz set up a £700,000 fund in 2010 to pay fines for women caught wearing the burka when that was banned in France six years ago.
The burkini has now been banned in six beach resorts in France, with mayors stating that wearing it is a security risk and a public order offence.
The order has been slammed by anti-racism group SOS Racisme, which described the campaign as a "strategy of tension".
France remains in a state of emergency following multiple terror attacks, including the lorry massacre in Nice, the murder of a priest in Normandy and the Paris atrocity last year.
Last week organisers of a so-called 'burkini party' at an indoor swimming pool in France have cancelled the event after they were sent bullets in the post.
Local MP Valerie Boyer had already called for for the event to be scrapped because the Islamic garb "subjugates women".
It is no coincidence that the ban on Islamic burkinis - full-body swimsuits - should arise from French Riviera beaches, a few kilometres from Nice, a city struck by a militant Islamist attack that killed 85 people on Bastille Day, just over a month ago.
The town of Cannes was the first to pass the summer ban, which was confirmed by the courts on 13 August. And Cannes was soon followed by the towns of Villeneuve-Loubet, near Nice, and Sisco in Corsica.
Even the mayor of the posh northern seaside resort of Le Touquet is said to be about to pass a similar ban that no burkini will be tolerated on public beaches.