MARSEILLE – A private swimming pool party planned by a French Muslim women group in a waterpark near the French city of Marseille has been canceled after organizers received death threats and bullets from angry public.

“It’s with astonishment and regret that we have noted the extent of this controversy,” the group organizing the event, Smile 13, said on Facebook, Local.fr reported on Tuesday, August 9.

“The situation has become surreal, from insults, incessant journalist requests, and death threats to members of the team,” the group wrote.

The dilemma started after Smile 13, a sports and social group for women and children, made a reservation in the town’s swimming center.

The event, planned on September 10, encouraged attendants to wear burqinis.

However, it was canceled due to a decision from the town’s mayor and the swimming centre in a bid to “calm the situation” following a strong reaction from the public.

According to the organizers, the reaction also included death threats being made to the Muslim organizers. One letter sent through the post contained bullets.

The local mayor Michel Amiens told the local France Bleu radio station on Tuesday that he had pulled the plug to “calm the situation”.

“The manager of the pool had not considered the sheer emotion that organizing this event could generate,” he said.

“We saw the reactions on social networks that were completely outrageous, Islamophobic, xenophobic, and racist, which I totally condemn, but given the circumstances, we have to cool things off.”

Shocking

The outrageous reaction that followed the cancellation of the event was shocking to the Muslim group, adding so much stress to the Muslim community.

The group said that someone sent a letter to one of the members containing bullets.

In its statement, the group stressed that the organization was an open and tolerant one, “including women from different backgrounds regardless of their religious and clothing choices”.

It also expressed shock that the event, which was supposed to be “a moment of relaxation”, became an issue that prompted intervention by “so many narrow minded polemicists and politicians”.

The group added that it had taken legal action against those who sent threats.

France is home to a Muslim community of nearly six million, the largest in Europe.

France was the first European country to ban the full-face Islamic veil in public places, but it is legal to wear Islamic dress.

Islamic headscarves were also banned in French schools in 2004.