Can the Notion of Dérive Sectaire Be Useful?

by Éric Bouzou (August 2013)

Many of the CICNS’s detractors use bad-faith arguments of the type “the CICNS is pro-cult”, attributing to the term “cults” the now-customary sense of “criminal groups”, and thereby casting a suspicion of dishonesty over our work. Since our association was founded we have encouraged all concerned parties not to use this term, because a debate about society cannot be founded on a word so pejorative and stigmatising (or else its use must serve to show its present meaning and the consequences of that meaning).

The public authorities, having themselves belatedly become “conscious” of the problems their struggle against “cults” might create for them before international bodies, put forward in 2002 the notion of dérives sectaires: the State claimed it was no longer fighting “cults” — groups of people — but conduct: dérives sectaires (hence the creation of the MIVILUDES to replace the MILS). But this “evolution” proved to be a trompe-l’œil allowing it to go on fighting “cults” with impunity, not least by persisting in naming them that way. Little by little, and with the zealous assistance of the media, the two notions (“cults”, dérives sectaires) blended together in people’s minds (including within the groups labelled “cults”) to mean more or less the same thing. An example of this conflation was given by Senator Yannick Vaugrenard during the most recent parliamentary inquiry into “cults”, in 2012–2013: “Our texts are not necessarily comprehensible or self-evident to ordinary mortals. (…) The basis is the prevention and punishment of dérives sectaires and not of cults; how do you explain that cults have practices that would not be sectaires, where there would be no dérives sectaires? Forgive this philistine question, but it is the question any ordinary citizen would put to you.” And indeed, readers interested in our work end up raising similar questions.

Observing the confusion maintained by the public authorities between the notion of “cult” and that of dérives sectaires, we have clearly criticised the latter, explaining that neither the definitions given nor the detection criteria envisaged could lead to a sound understanding of the situations concerned.

This position challenges some of our readers, who consider that “there really are things going on, in terms of dérives sectaires”. To questions of this kind, our first answer has been the same from the beginning: yes, there can be unlawful situations, cases of dérive (we deliberately omit the word sectaire) which must be dealt with on the basis of “concrete evidence, established facts that are punishable under criminal law” — a position very close to that of the Ministry of the Interior, the difference being that the Ministry endorses the notion of dérive sectaire. Our second answer is to encourage these interlocutors to check whether their position on dérive sectaire might not be an indirect way of ultimately justifying the use of the word “cult” (see a more detailed analysis of this type of attitude).

Does this mean we definitively reject any notion of dérive sectaire? The answer is no, because a “notion” poses no problem in itself — every subject must be open to discussion — but it does pose one if it enters the field of public action without having been sufficiently delimited.

To demonstrate our good faith, we set out below the conditions under which a concept of dérive sectaire might conceivably be of some use.

Conditions for a sound definition and use of the notion of dérive sectaire

Three conditions would be necessary:

Condition 1: this notion could not be a deceptive screen for normalising the word “cult” in public discourse and pursuing the struggle against “cults”.

Condition 2: this notion would have to answer a real question, clearly defined and concerning society as a whole rather than targeted groups.

Condition 3: this notion would have legitimacy only if it were defined and used with the most extreme precautions, so as to avoid conflation, partiality and the appropriation of the judgements made. It would therefore have to be freed of any pejorative charge.

The notion of dérive sectaire — to answer which question of society?

The prior question: “Do there exist, in a given environment, conditions of psychological pressure, or conditions of life or work, organised deliberately and repeatedly, degrading the physical or mental health of an adult or of a group of adults against their will, or preventing them from flourishing as they expressly wish, in particular in the expression of their convictions or their life choices (insofar as those choices do not break the law)?”

One could speak of dérive sectaire when these conditions, with the consequences mentioned above, are established on the basis of concrete evidence, of established facts that are punishable under criminal law. The methodology by which these conditions and their consequences would be analysed in order to reach such a conclusion remains to be defined.

Nevertheless, before pronouncing a finding of dérives sectaires valid, the value of the consent of adults designated — or self-designated — as “victims” could not be lightly set aside, insofar as that consent is a fundamental element in private-law relations and in the law of civil liberties (Professor Patrice Rolland).

The case of children would also have to be addressed, seeking a balance that is sometimes difficult to find between the child’s right to self-determination and the parents’ right to raise the child as they see fit.

The notion of dérive sectaire as used by the public authorities

We comment below on the way in which the public authorities, supported by most of the media, have failed on every condition for a sound definition and use of the notion of dérive sectaire.

Condition 1:

We have produced abundant documentation on our site showing that the public authorities still, de facto, fight the groups they designate by the word “cults” (that is, alternative movements with a spiritual, educational or therapeutic purpose): some proof in the form of quotations.

Condition 2:

The “question of society” artificially manufactured by the public authorities, with the assistance of the anti-cult associations and under cover of a supposed defence of the family and of individuals, in fact comes down to this: “‘Cults’ are a social scourge, we must be rid of them” (see, by way of illustration, the quotations given as examples in the preceding paragraph). A policy of a priori suspicion and discredit — resting on an arsenal of anti-cult measures that isolates France from the rest of the world (with the exception of certain countries such as China) — has been generalised against these movements without any tangible, qualitative, statistical or criminal evidence to justify it.

As for the definition the MIVILUDES gives of dérive sectaire, which might resemble what we call the prior question of society, it is discussed at point 4.

Condition 3:

A deliberately discriminatory approach

Only the groups arbitrarily designated as “cults” by the public authorities are accused of dérives sectaires (see the section “Is the notion of dérive sectaire useful?” for examples of sectors of society exempted from any accusation of dérives sectaires).

The translation of anti-cult policy into law has also amplified the deliberately discriminatory turn of this struggle, in particular with the About-Picard law, which targets « mouvements sectaires » explicitly in its title (excluding de facto, if not de jure, its application to groups not labelled sectaires) and introduces the notion of “psychological subjection” (sujétion psychologique), an unfortunate legal rendering of the concept of “mental manipulation”.

It is instructive to compare this law with the legislator’s attempts to deal with equivalent situations — although sadly the similarity of those situations was not recognised by that legislator, whether deliberately or not — in the world of work, with moral harassment (harcèlement moral)[1], and in the family, with the offence of psychological violence[2]. We drew on these two latter offences, in fact, to propose a wording for the question of society that the notion of dérive sectaire might answer, and which could then apply to every environment.

Only the offence of abuse of weakness through psychological subjection[3] establishes a direct alteration of the “victim’s” psyche, whereas in the definitions of moral harassment and of psychological violence it is the resulting “conditions of life” that produce a damaging effect on the “victim”. There is therefore, in the About-Picard law, a dangerous digression towards a pseudo-scientific concept (mental manipulation — psychological subjection in the law) described as a tool of subjugation, implicitly attributed to the so-called “cults” and their “gurus”.

An absence of methodology and of intellectual honesty

The public authorities’ failure to use the notion of dérive sectaire in a balanced and impartial way is due mainly to two factors: the absence of any methodology in defining and applying the criteria of dérive sectaire, and a lack of intellectual honesty about the underlying intentions of anti-cult policy.

The definition of dérive sectaire proposed by the MIVILUDES[4] is not serious, since it attempts to validate the notion of “loss of free will”, regarded as pseudo-scientific by most researchers competent on the subject. As for the current criteria[5] by which, according to the MIVILUDES, a dérive sectaire may be detected, they have been rightly criticised by many commentators (example 1, example 2). We shall confine ourselves to two examples: “mental destabilisation”, another synonym for “mental manipulation”, is not a credible criterion, as we have indicated above; and “the break with the original environment”, a criterion frequently used against “cults”, is a laconic formulation that invites every kind of interpretative excess. Restrictions on its use ought to be defined, in particular in relation to the consent of the person said to have broken with their original environment. That consent could not be brushed aside, as it is today, with the summary accusation that the person has been “mentally manipulated”. Besides, it would occur to no one to reproach a recognised monastic community for effectively severing its members’ family ties, whereas that accusation is systematic once such a community has been designated a “cult”.

Ultimately, whatever the quality of a new methodology devised to qualify a dérive sectaire, the intention with which those rules were used would be the dominant factor in the impact of their use on society. If the intention is conspicuously discriminatory or partial, as it is today, their use would generate tension. One need only see how a balanced and well-drafted law — the 1905 Law on the Separation of the Churches and the State — can be perverted in its spirit and its use by all the grandees of an intolerant laïcité, who nonetheless invoke that very law.

Before contemplating the study of a new notion of dérive sectaire, then, it would be necessary for the public authorities to extract themselves from their anti-cult monomania and to refrain from turning one part of society, presumed healthy, against another: the groups arbitrarily labelled “cults” and judged unhealthy.

Moreover, the possibility of ridding the notion of dérive sectaire of its pejorative charge, and that of clearing up the confusion between “cults” and dérives sectaires in people’s minds — two necessary points — appear negligible.

Is the notion of dérive sectaire useful?

A notion of dérive sectaire, defined and used under the conditions set out above, could be of some use, but the logical consequence would be the following:

In many cases, the family environment and the violence that often reigns within it would appear to generate numerous dérives sectaires; this is the view of a lawyer well acquainted with the subject (Maître Hincker).

In many cases, the debilitating consumerist environment imposed on the citizen, notably with its spearhead neuromarketing, would appear to generate numerous dérives sectaires.

In many cases, the corporate environment, with its pursuit of maximum output, in certain cases driving workers to suicide, would appear to generate numerous dérives sectaires.

In many cases, the republican education system, ultimately prizing and encouraging a market vision of society and a relentless competitive spirit, and failing to answer the aspirations of a growing share of the young, would appear to carry dérives sectaires.

Certainly, there would also be cases of dérives sectaires among alternative movements with a spiritual, educational or therapeutic purpose, but we wager that they would appear statistically insignificant compared with the other sectors of society mentioned above, in no way justifying the French anti-cult struggle in its present form (a number of lawyers and sociologists do in fact consider that delinquency is statistically very low within the groups labelled “cults”: see Jean-Marce Florand or Raphaël Liogier, for example).

At the same time, the action of the MIVILUDES and of the anti-cult associations against alternative movements would appear to be a dérive sectaire. The former president of the MIVILUDES, Jean-Michel Roulet, was almost conscious of this when he declared: “We must not turn ourselves into a cult by setting ourselves up as directors of conscience” (Culture Droit no. 18, November 2008).

Likewise, the arguments of the defenders of a sacralised, hard-line laïcité, seeking to eradicate the spiritual and the religious from public space, would be seen as dérives sectaires.

These multiple findings of dérives sectaires would have the advantage of indicating, if that were still necessary, the urgency of a profound change in society. There is unfortunately no doubt that those in power want to hear nothing of such an assessment. They have therefore preferred a perverted notion of dérive sectaire, aimed precisely at groups that might carry alternative solutions for society.

For all these reasons, we denounce the notion of dérive sectaire propagated by the public authorities. Pending a more serious reflection on the subject, in a calmer climate, we invite people to speak simply of dérive — a term that has the advantage of being neutral, non-discriminatory and non-pejorative.

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[1] “Moral harassment manifests itself in repeated conduct having as its object or effect a degradation of working conditions liable to infringe the employee’s rights at work and their dignity, to impair their physical health or to compromise their professional future.” (Service Public)

[2] The offence of psychological violence penalises “repeated conduct having as its object or effect a degradation of a person’s conditions of life liable to bring about an alteration of their physical or mental health” (Les Nouvelles News).

[3] “Is punished by three years’ imprisonment and a fine of 2,500,000 francs, the fraudulent abuse of the state of ignorance or the situation of weakness either of a minor, or of a person…, or of a person in a state of psychological or physical subjection resulting from the exercise of grave or repeated pressure or of techniques apt to impair their judgement, in order to lead that minor or that person into an act or an abstention gravely prejudicial to them” (Légifrance)

[4] “It is a perversion of the freedom of thought, of opinion or of religion which infringes public order, laws or regulations, fundamental rights, or the safety or integrity of persons. It is characterised by the use, by an organised group or by an isolated individual, whatever its nature or its activity, of pressures or techniques aimed at creating, maintaining or exploiting in a person a state of psychological or physical subjection, depriving them of part of their free will, with damaging consequences for that person, those around them, or for society.” (Miviludes)

[5] “Mental destabilisation, the exorbitant character of financial demands, the break with the original environment, the existence of attacks on physical integrity, the enlistment of children, antisocial discourse, disturbances of public order, the scale of legal entanglements, the possible diversion of traditional economic circuits, attempts to infiltrate the public authorities” (Miviludes).