A court in Corsica has upheld a ban on the burkini "on security grounds", in the first such ruling since France's highest administrative court overturned another decree banning the body covering swimsuit, reports The Telegraph.
The administrative court of Bastia on the Mediterranean island rejected a request by the Human Rights League to annul a ban on wearing the garment in the Corsican resort of Sisco.
The village's mayor had issued the decree the day after a fight broke out between three Moroccan residents and other locals mid-August. Initial reports suggested a woman had been bathing with a burkini, but these later proved false.
Debate has been raging in France over women's rights and secularity since a string of beach resort towns in southern France banned the swimsuit in July and August.
France's highest administrative court then suspended one seaside town's ban in the Mediterranean resort of Villeneuve-Loubet on the grounds it violated fundamental liberties. An administrative court in Nice and Cannes went on to suspend the ban using the same arguments.
But the Corsican court ruled that given that "the emotion has not yet declined" over the August 13 brawl, the presence of burkini-clad woman on Sisco beach was "liable to create clear risks of disrupting public order".
"This is a relief for my and my fellow residents and even, I believe, for the whole of Corsica," Ange-Pierre Vivoni, mayor of Sisco, told AFP.
"I'm not against anyone," he went on. "Everyone can live in Sisco."
"I issued this decree to ensure the security of people and goods in my town. There was a risk of people dying," he claimed.
Five men are due to stand trial over the August 13 beach fight on September 15.
The ruling came as France's prime minister has slammed claims by a string of French Muslims in the The New York Times that they are ostracised and victims of Islamophobia, saying most were taken from a controversial conference not open to white people.