Review of the Monograph: Cohen-Almagor R. The Republic, Secularism and Security: France versus the Burqa and the Niqab. Cham: Springer, 2022. 66 p.

Abstract

On October 11, 2010, France became the first European country to ban the full-face Islamic veil – the burqa and niqab, in public places. After France becoming a “pioneer” in this area, by contrast to the United Stated and Russia, facial veil prohibition acts have been adopted in several other European countries and discussed in even more. These acts and political debates have generated a colossal number of research papers – mostly on legal issues by lawyer-scholars, critical analyses and, I’m sure, will produce many more. They have mainly focused on different aspects of the right to religious and cultural freedom, the right to gender equality. However, the novelty of Professor Raphael Cohen-Almagor’s monograph “The Republic, Secularism and Security: France versus the Burqa and the Niqab” lies in a non-standard approach to the veil-ban issue – he investigates using different methodological instruments not only the legal core the ban, but also (and mostly) the factors motivating the French legislator, what it symbolizes. Since the niqab and burqa wearers are extremely rare in France, as in almost all European Countries, one may agree that there surely isn’t an actual social problem, needing to be regulated by the government. Such disproportional This difference between practical importance and French legislative effort have urged Professor Cohen-Almagor to dwell on the reasons of such a high interest by the public administration to the religious facial veil. The study was carried out using various scientific methods: general scientific (analysis, synthesis, modeling, abstraction, etc.), empirical (observation, statistics), specifically legal (comparative legal, axiological, sociological, hermeneutics), historical (diachronic, ideographic). Huge practical experience, thorough, systemic knowledge of the regulatory material and practical aspects of its implementation allow the Author to analyze the symbolic and instrumental role of the facial veil in France’s pursuit for national identity building.