But as far as I can see, this is about people who to wear a certain kind of hat or style of swimsuit. How is that conceivably an actual harm against other people?
The ban of the burkini is a misguided attempt to alleviate that tension.
Although this is very sad to write, nowadays in France being very publicly muslim increases that tension.
Using burkinis that contrast your being covered whilst the rest of the people on the beach/pool are semi-naked is included in being very publicly muslim.
Also, there is a big element of context in this article. See my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12352798.
Its so badly and obviously misguided as a technique to that intent that it is simply implausible that that is the actual intent, specifically in that it does the exact opposite, and that it is transparently obvious that it would do so, and that even if you might excuse someone for failing to recognize this in a vacuum, the fact that a number of similar previous bans have been both proposed and implemented in Europe, and France specifically, with wide media coverage and the same counterproductive effect makes it impossible to believe any policy maker anywhere in France (or, on Earth for that matter) could, other than through willful ignorance, be unaware of the likely effect.
These stories of oppression spread throughout the world and we know they are used by groups like ISIS to spread their message.
There need to be limits, and while it is very difficult for everyone to agree on where they stand, and easy for us to mock the "Leaders need to do SOMETHING!", they only have so many tools to try and improve the situation. Banning the burkini is one of them (that I don't find particularly useful, but anyway).
Once burkini has been banned, you can respect the law and/or protest against it. If you choose to protest it with civil disobedience, you go to the beach and refuse to leave, this is going to happen. So this woman might have decided along the way that it was better to take some clothes off than to leave, or perhaps she was fined and was trying to talk herself out of it. Who knows? We lack sufficient information.
But I don't think it is justified to classify this as "police forcingly undress and shame woman", and make the moral parallel with islamic police making women cover themselves. Pkgundert's comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12352409) gives some reasons. You could also read that and cynically say that France is here also practicing tyranny.
The fact is that the context of this news is that France is in state of emergency, and this woman chose to practice civil disobedience in Nice barely a month after the Nice attack.
For comparison, as you say you are american: ranked against all terrorist attacks in USA [2], Nice would end up ranking 3rd or 4th.
Perhaps that's what the terrorists want. But the fact is that the tension is already there, and there would have been problems even without the police:
>“The saddest thing was that people were shouting ‘go home’, some were applauding the police,” she said. “Her daughter was crying.”
[1] http://www.politico.eu/article/german-tourists-prank-trigger...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States...