Riot police were summoned and a man was injured by a harpoon when a mass brawl broke out on a beach in Corsica, apparently triggered by a tourist taking a photo of women in “burkinis”.

The incident came after the mayor of Cannes banned women from wearing the full-body, head-covering swimsuits on beaches of his Riviera town.

The riot in Corsica took place on Saturday in a cove near the village of Sisco in the north of the French Mediterranean island.

“It happened because a tourist was taking photos,” said Ange-Pierre Vivoni, the local mayor, on TF1 television. “And the Maghrebins (North Africans) didn’t want to have their photos taken. It was quite a trivial matter to begin with.”

Things got out of hand when young men of North African origin harangued the tourist who took the pictures, prompting local youngsters to intervene in defence of the visitor.