Mayors in around 30 French towns last month cited the country's century-old secular laws in banning head-to-toe swimwear on their beaches.
Paris
: President Francois Hollande insisted on Thursday that France's strict laws separating church and state do not prevent the country's large Muslim minority from practising their religion.
In a speech on terrorism and democracy coming in the midst of a debate on the banning of the Islamic burkini swimsuit, Hollande said, -"Nothing in the idea of secularism opposes the practice of Islam in France, provided it respects the law.-"
Mayors in around 30 French towns last month cited the country's century-old secular laws in banning head-to-toe swimwear on their beaches, unleashing a furore.
Hollande said secularism was not a -"state religion-" to be used against other religions.
The state guaranteed -"the right to believe or not to believe-" as long the demonstration of that belief did -"not disrupt public order,-" he said.
Asking whether Islam could co-exist with a secular French state, like Christianity and Judaism, he insisted: -"My answer is yes, certainly.-"
-"The question the Republic must answer is: Is it really ready to make place for a religion that it did not expect to be this big over a century ago. There too, my answer is yes, certainly.-"
