Burkini-clad woman in France asked to pay cleaning fee for taking a dip in communal pool

A woman wearing a burkini to a communal swimming pool in a private residence near Marseille, France, was reportedly asked by the owner to pay pool cleaning fee.

Upon her entering the pool, the owner asked the others to leave the pool, according to an article published by United Against Islamaphobia in France - an organisation fighting against Islamophobia.

The woman, identified as Fadila in the article, reportedly told the organistion that she was staying at the private residence with her husband and three children when the incident happened. She also said that she was kept from using the pool for the remainder of their stay at the place.

IBTimesUK contacted the landlord of the property. He explainedthey would have welcomed her back, only "if she wore a normal swimsuit."

Fadila said that the owner told her that he received complaints from the building's syndicate that a woman wearing a burqa entered the pool and refused to leave when asked to. However, she claimed that she was never stopped from using the pool when she first went there.

"I was stunned because no one had stopped me or said anything at all," she reportedly told the anti-Islamophobia organisation.

"I was disappointed, shocked, wounded by the fact that someone could be so hypocritical and mean, because of a burkini," she added.

Talking to IBTimesUK, she added: "It's the first time it happened to me. You always see the way people look at you when you wear a veil, you see their despising looks. But this, it makes me disgusted with everything."

She spend the next day in disbelief, crying in her room: "I was amazed by their level of wickedness. I had done nothing wrong!"

Fadila told IBTimesUK that the owner took away their €470 (£425, $554) handed as deposit before they left the property. She added that they refused to pay because the pool was not emptied and cleaned as claimed by the pool owner at the time of demanding the bill.

According to her, only an unsubstantial quantity of water was taken out of the pool, and her husband reported seeing small children in the pool while it was supposed non-functional and therefor, closed to the public.

. He explained that the actions taken were not of his own doing, but had been decided, in his absence, by the co-owners of the property.

He did not know that burkinis are made with nylon or polyester, and are specifically designed for swimming, not much different from a diving suit: "He [Fadila's husband] showed me pictures of his wife in the pool and she was fully closed. He tried to explain to me what she was wearing.

So yes, I guess it would have been a swimsuit, but more something you'd wear in 1900s. Nowadays, in France, a swimsuit means either a one-piece or a two-piece."

He also specified that the guidelines of the pool excluded shorts for men, who are only allowed to wear swimming briefs.

Both burkinis and swim shorts are banned from public pools everywhere in France.

The CCIF has asked the landlord to publicly apologise to Fadila and to hand back the 470. However, Fadila says she's thinking of going further even if he apologises: "it's not only just me. I'm not the first one to whom something like that has happened and I won't be the last."