Monday evening, the Grenoble city council gave the green light on Monday to wearing the burkini in municipal swimming pools, after a close vote. Green mayor Éric Piolle, leading a broad left-wing coalition, managed to muster the necessary number of votes despite 13 members of his own majority saying they “disagree”.
Faced with this decision, the president (LR) of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region Laurent Wauquiez, very quickly announced that “faced with this separatism”, the Region “immediately ceases all subsidies to the town hall of Grenoble”, accusing Éric Piolle to “definitively record its break with secularism and the values of our Republic”.
By authorizing the wearing of the burkini in municipal swimming pools, Eric Piolle definitively acts his break with secularism and the values of our Republic. Faced with this separatism and as I had promised, the Region will immediately cease all subsidies to the town hall of Grenoble.— Laurent Wauquiez (@laurentwauquiez) May 16, 2022
A “pact with political Islam”
In a press release, relayed by Le Dauphiné Libéré, the elected LR describes this decision as a “pact with political Islam”, which marks “a worrying drift and a real step backwards”. “She promotes, in total rupture with all the values of the Republic, a sign of female submission, a symbol of political Islam. We will not be complicit in this submission maneuver,” added the regional president.
Laurent Wauquiez also indicates that “with the aim of avoiding this type of drift”, the region adopted during its plenary assembly on March 17 and 19 a “Charter for the defense of the values of France and secularism” , allowing “in particular to suspend aid from the Region to structures that do not respect our republican values”.
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Sunday evening, the prefect of Isère Laurent Prévost had indicated that he would seize the administrative court of Grenoble, on the instruction of the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin to block the measure, if it were adopted, by appealing to a provision introduced by the law on separatism passed in August 2021, which concerns acts “seriously undermining the principle of secularism and neutrality of public service”.
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