France, or rather some localities mainly in the South, has declared war on burkinis on the beach. Burkini’s are all-enveloping wear which Muslims, mainly, wear to the beach.

Not to be mixed up with burka’s, the equally long dress worn with a headveil by mainly Muslim women.

Gendarmes in France have been taking to the beaches and in some cases humiliatingly force women wearing burkinis to disrobe.

All sorts of reasons have been brought – unhygienic, dirt, etc – but the main argument has been You are in the West now and here women are free to wear skimpy swimsuits.

The war has caught on. In Germany, there has been talk of banning the burka, or at least enforcing a soft ban, that is banning the hiding of the face in offices, banks, etc. Deep down there is always the fear that a burka or burkini can hide a weapon underneath.

But the whole situation is far more nuanced than many think. The imam of Florence has put up a jokey post showing a group of nuns at the seaside, asking if that was a sort of Catholic burkini.

There is no discernible connection between burkinis and radicalized Islamists. The terrorists may have been people who had been radicalized but hardly people who regularly go to the mosque.

It is a fact that the wearing of veils, burkas and burkinis has proliferated across Europe. Coming amidst so many terrorist attacks and counter-terrorist police action, one would have expected the wearing of veils to drop off. It is considered by many in the West to be an act of defiance but this is not necessarily so. It may rather be considered as an act of greater freedom. The women who, many times with no compulsion at all, start wearing the veil, graduate to the burka, and even go to the beach in a burkini, are staking their place in the society they live in. In other times, they would not have dared go to the beach.

It is acts of repression such as that by the police who embody the Clash of Civilisations that is the road to future distress. On the contrary, by living ordinary lives, going to work and enjoying themselves at the beach (even if wearing burkinis) the Muslim women are staking their place in a modern, multi-cultural and multi-religious society. For them, being a Muslim and appearing as such is not in contradiction with being a French citizen. Or a German.

It is when they are faced with an intolerant police force that they would be tempted to become radicalised. Or if not they themselves, their men, their sons.