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Comment by sheepdestroyer | Hacker News Reader

Instead of forbidding burkinis, a better way to fight against this backward repressive fashion would be to encourage people to go swimming in the nude. It's already mostly accepted on french beaches and would be a nice cultural counter, non violently reclaiming public space from extremists ideologies.

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That won't "reclaim" the beaches, you'll just have conflicts between the two groups.

The way to solve it is to make the beaches nude-only. Then no anti-religious discrimination can be claimed: if they want to swim there, they just have to shed their clothes, and the rule is the same for everyone. Although, as a very fair-skinned person, the main problem I'd have with that is sunburn; I already like to wear a t-shirt at the beach for that reason.

Wouldn't the more obvious choice be to have 3 different beaches, one for no clothes, one for cultural accepted amount of clothes, and one fully clothed. It would follow the current setup of non-nude and nude beaches, and everyone could avoid being confronted with situations that they are uncomfortable with.

Why should a bunch of religious nuts be entitled to having their own public beach set aside for them?

If they get the prime section of beach, then everyone else is going to complain (rightfully) that the religious minority is getting special privileges.

If they get the crappy section of beach (relative to the nude and normal beaches), the religious minority is going to complain that they're being discriminated against.

You can't make a bunch of identical beaches. Beaches are not like software; you can't endlessly replicate them. Some are better than others, and they're a limited resource.

And finally, why should the country cater to religious extremists in the first place?

Confused: currently all the beaches are set aside for the religious nuts - the Frenchmen who can't abide anyone dressing differently.

That's a stupid statement. There's no religion involved there, only culture. And who are you to tell the people of a whole nation that their culture is wrong, and that they should abandon it and adopt someone else's culture?

Are they separable in France?

Outside of nudist beaches, which represent a tiny fraction, swimming in the nude isn't tolerated on french beaches. (maybe you were joking ?)

That is really theoretical and enforcement depends of individual cities. In fact a lot a naturist beaches are not separated from the normal ones by any physical limitation and you can go from one side to the other without noticing it.

I know it for having found myself surprised to be on the fun part of the beach countless times.

That's a picture of a French minister crossing path with a local enjoying himself : http://www.directmatin.fr/france/2016-08-11/emmanuel-macron-...

Oh, and topless for women is ok everywhere.

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