Burkini riot leads to French ban

A Corsican village has banned the burkini following a mass brawl over the weekend allegedly sparked by the full-body swimsuit.

Mayor Pierre-Ange Vivoni of Sisco, a village in the north of Corsica, said the ban would come into effect on Tuesday (16 August).

It comes after the swimsuit was banned in the Riviera resort of Cannes, with one official describing it as displaying "an allegiance to terrorist movements that are at war with us".

On Sunday, there was a mass brawl in Sisco, allegedly sparked when a tourist attempted to take photographs of women wearing burkinis on a local beach.

North African men and locals clashed, with some some armed with harpoons and hatchets, local media reported.

Prosecutors said five people, including a pregnant woman, were injured in the brawl, all of whom were subsequently discharged from hospital. One man's injuries were allegedly caused by a harpoon.

The scuffle lasted several hours, and was broken up after riot police were mobilised. Police and locals clashed in the nearby town of Bastia Sunday, when a crowd of protesters tried to hold a demonstration in the Lupito area, where there is a large North African population.

A series of terror attacks by Islamic fundamentalists have left France in a state of heightened tension. Following the recent Bastille Day attack in Nice in which 85 people were killed, Corsican separatist threatened violent reprisals if Islamic extremists launched an attack on the Medittarranean island. Corsican authorities subsequently closed down a number of mosques accused of links to extremism.