The Guardian reports that Nice’s Socialist mayor, Ange-Pierre Vivoni, called his ban on this particular style of ladies’ swimwear a vital act to “protect the population.” The mayor was backed by a tribunal ruling calling the ban a “necessary, appropriate and proportionate” response in the interest of maintaining public order following several jihadist attacks in France, including one where 84 people were killed by a maniac in a truck last month, just a few hundred feet from the beach in Nice where the woman in those viral images was forced to dress down by armed agents of the state.

The tribunal also justified the ban by stating that the burkini — which resembles a looser-fitting version of a standard wetsuit — was “liable to offend the religious convictions or (religious) non-convictions of other users of the beach,” and “be felt as a defiance or a provocation exacerbating tensions felt by [the community],” according to The Guardian.