Me, Anne, a Mother: Children Held Hostage by French-Style Anti-Cultism

ME, ANNE, A MOTHER…

Or the children held hostage by French-style anti-cultism

CICNS comment: A vibrant testimony that stirs sadness and revolt by revealing the expeditious and dramatic methods surrounding certain so-called “cult” cases. Here, a mother, Anne Frances, member of the “Gens de Bernard” community (see the video of their 2007 testimony).

Even if we do not wish to comment on the court decisions taken in this case, we cannot help but recognise in this account the usual consequences of the “anti-cult fight” as it is waged in our country: flagrant bias in favour of the informers, without regard for the suffering that this blindness can cause (and despite the thunderous commissions set up to defend “minors” from the menace of “cults”). To be read and shared…

January 2008.

I have two children; I have been the mother of 2 little girls for nine years already, and it is the most beautiful thing that has happened in my life.

A shared choice of life: a community…

I met my husband when I was in high school, and we married in 1993 after three years of living together; my husband and I lived in a small apartment in Marseille.

At the beginning of 1998, before the birth of our first daughter, my ex-husband and I, after several months of reflection, chose and decided to share values and a faith, and therefore to invest ourselves further in the association of the “Gens de Bernard”, part of whose stated purpose I quote below: “The association of the Gens de Bernard brings together people of Judeo-Christian origin who consider that life cannot unfold without faith, and that this faith, to truly exist, must be lived with others, in a free community: that is, a community which respects the life, opinions, origins and activities of each person, bringing them together in their complementarity and their diversity instead of levelling them and restricting them through constraints of a moral order. It is therefore within this collective symbolic space that gatherings, exchanges and times of prayer take place, even though the diverse origins impose respect for differences…”

We live in a residence in which each person has an apartment where they live with their family and where they receive their friends and relatives… We take meals in common, we have shared activities, we do each other favours… We have a chapel where, from time to time, priests come from outside to say mass. All the children go to primary school, middle school, high school or university. Each of us works outside. In short, we have a life rather like a small village where the inhabitants know one another. I should point out that, on the estate, apartments are rented to people from outside the association.

A divorce, and the community becomes a cult!

From 1998 until today, for nine years I have been raising my daughters with dignity and with much love, despite difficulties in my marriage: an alcoholic and unstable husband.

In 2001, an anonymous denunciation (for mistreatment) earned us a social inquiry lasting several months. The children’s judge concluded in his ruling: “The social inquiry (…) makes a very positive finding on these children’s living conditions; the housing conditions are entirely suitable for these children, the material and psychological care of these children is entirely satisfactory… rules that there are no grounds for an educational assistance measure, orders the case closed…”

In January 2006, my husband and I divorced amicably after fifteen years together (my husband had been unfaithful to me several times); the judge approved the divorce agreement, which stipulates that I have custody of the children and that their father sees them regularly according to his possibilities (“visiting and lodging rights amicably determined”). My ex-husband no longer takes part in the life of the association but remains, with his new partner, on the estate, in a new apartment.

In February 2006, he telephoned my father to tell him that his grandchildren were in danger. Neither my father nor I measured, at the time, the threat in his words. But over the following months he gradually adopted aggressive behaviour, provoking altercations with his neighbours.

In May 2006, he left the estate and went away with his partner. From then on he took the children every other Friday evening after school and brought them back on Sunday evening.

That same month, one of my daughters, with her father’s agreement, had taken the entrance exam for a special-timetable choral singing class at the Regional Conservatory. In July 2006, our daughter passed the exam, but her father opposed her entering the school, giving no reason. I then filed an emergency interim application so that our daughter could enter the school in September. But the father twice requested that the case be postponed — the school year began, and our daughter joined the school thanks to the director, who took her will and her desire into account.

The interim application was postponed to March 2007, by which time it no longer had any purpose; the school year had begun and our daughter was perfectly at ease in the school.

Precautionary principle: the children are taken hostage!

On 17 January 2007, forty gendarmes descended on the estate (editor’s note: see the video testimony of the gendarmerie raid); they arrested the officials of our association, who were questioned and released after 48 hours in police custody — with the exception of the facilitator of our community, accused and placed under formal investigation, on allegations without evidence, of being a guru and of committing violence against our children.

Two months later, the interim application suddenly took on a meaning: my ex-husband made use of this criminal case and accused me, then, of being in a cult. Relying on the press articles published in the wake of 17 January, which served to justify his testimony, he demanded custody of the children. In May 2007, a judge ruled: “It results in any event from the file of Mr X…, a repentant former member of the community, sufficient presumptions of danger to the children to grant his requests for transfer of the children’s residence and suspension of the mother’s lodging rights for as long as she maintains such a living environment…”

As for my file — which contains the children’s judge’s conclusion of 2001, but also recent testimonies (January 2007) from my family, my employer, the doctor, the schoolteachers and even the parish priest who teaches catechism to my children — it was not taken into account, because my testimonies were considered supposedly “old and vague”! Which amounts to denying me any say at all — every exculpatory testimony in the file being refused on this fallacious pretext! Yet the press articles and my ex-husband’s testimonies were considered and justified “because it is established that there is a criminal case.”

In truth, an anti-cult association (editor’s note: Infosectes in Toulouse) had got its hooks into my ex-husband’s new little family (he had a daughter with his partner, who herself already has a son), helping them settle in; my ex-husband demanded the children and — without any inquiry, and because he was considered a “repentant” — obtained custody.

The children are followed by a psychologist recommended by the anti-cult association. And it is the head of that association who drives them there!

My ex-husband then took the children into his home overnight, without their belongings, without any preparation, and changed their school one month before the end of the school year. This with the support of the education authority, overriding my refusal and the court decision, even though I still have parental authority. I quote the judgment: “Rules that for the exercise of this joint parental authority, the father and the mother must take by common agreement all important decisions concerning the children’s lives, including schooling and career orientation, travel outside the national territory, religion, health, authorisations to practise dangerous sports…”

Application of the law, or a mere unjustified precautionary principle?

All of this is so absurd that, of course, I appealed the judgment; but on 26 July 2007, the court confirmed custody to the father. I continue to see my children at the “point rencontre” or under the supervision of my parents (who, as of that date, had still not been heard!). And an inquiry was ordered: “In this state of affairs, it is necessary to gather objective information on the material and educational conditions that each parent can offer. A social inquiry will be ordered, and until the decision to be delivered upon reading of the report, it appears justified in the children’s interest: to maintain joint exercise of parental authority, to leave the children’s habitual residence with their father…”

The person designated as competent for this case refused to carry out the inquiry (Why? That is not specified in the order…); a court psychologist was then appointed as a replacement.

Three months passed. The investigator proceeded to interview me, then the children’s father, then his partner, and finally the children (in their bedroom, with the door open onto the kitchen where their father and his partner were). Where is the objectivity?

At the end of September 2007, my ex-husband cracked. He telephoned me several times between 11:30 p.m. and midnight, telling me he was tired and no longer wanted to look after the children. He wanted to bring them back to me at once. Thinking of my daughters’ safety, I went to collect them, accompanied by two witnesses, at the petrol station near my home where we had arranged to meet. He smelled strongly of alcohol. As all this was happening outside the courts, I demanded a letter from him, which he wrote on the spot, and I then went to the police to make a statement. His letter states that he was giving me back custody of the children, that he could not cope any more, that he would make no more trouble for me, and that he would inform the judge.

The next morning, after notifying the school, I stayed at home with my daughters so they could rest. At the end of the morning I took them to school. When I went to the school gate to collect the children, the teachers and the headmaster prevented me. My ex-husband, who during the day had been “turned around”, entrusted the children in writing, at the request of the school and the education authority, to his partner. The headmaster demanded a written decision from the judge before letting me have the children.

Meanwhile, the investigator requested a postponement for delivering her conclusions; the initial date was 15 November, it was now 31 December.

An event that sheds light on my ex-husband’s way of doing things must be reported: he struck his partner while she was carrying their baby in her arms; he was blind drunk, violent; he broke a window pane with his fist, and all this in front of the children. The police intervened at his partner’s request. He forbade the children to speak of it. Despite everything, my daughters, traumatised, told me, and I immediately informed the investigator, who “lectured” my ex-husband. My ex-husband turned on the children and accused them of having “betrayed” him, telling them: “in any case, you can say whatever you like, no one will believe you, you will never go back to your mother’s.” And his partner added that they were spoiled children, slapped them, and threatened that they would not see me any more.

Christmas 2007

A few days before this family holiday, I learned with astonishment that my two daughters would be spending the holidays in Barcelona with my brother.

1/ My ex-husband cannot, under the terms of the judgment already cited, take the children out of the national territory without my agreement (one is led to believe that when you declare yourself the victim of a cult, you are no longer required to respect the law…)

2/ I decided, in order to see my daughters, to go to Barcelona at the invitation of my brother, who was as disgusted as I was by the attitude of my ex-husband — only too happy to be without our children so he could join his partner with her family. My mother, who was also in Barcelona, recounted to me the phone call she had received from the investigator, informing her of the conclusions of her inquiry: she recommends placing my children in a foster family. The investigator went on to say that my children must be “removed from the conflict” and that, for these conclusions, she did not need the grandparents’ testimony. The investigator added that she had already informed the children’s father, who seemed to welcome this proposal — thereby confirming that he does not want to look after the children. My mother is convinced that the investigator telephoned me too, to share her proposed conclusions with me. I should make clear that no, of course she did not.

That is how, on top of everything, they try to cut me off from my family.

Is it customary, in social inquiries, to give information by telephone?

What is the aim of this manoeuvre?

I permit myself, at this stage, to think that the investigator’s conclusions stem from the finding that my ex-husband is incapable of looking after his children. But I, against whom no fact is alleged — on what grounds can they continue to take my children away from me?

And what of the parental authority that the judge has recognised as mine?

The children still hostages!

But here again, this conclusion was reached without a single one of my contacts — family, friends, work colleagues or institutional figures I had named — being heard. Which means that all the people who could contribute positive elements, running counter to the instrumentalisation and thus providing exculpatory elements, are automatically denied! How can the interviewing of my children in such a setting be characterised as anything other than manipulation! For can one really say they were listened to, when they were subjected to a slanted interrogation? Example: the investigator says to the children, “You used to watch television at your house?” Answer: “Yes.” “But you didn’t watch television the way you do at your dad’s?” Answer: “No.” “You only watched DVDs?” Answer: “Yes.” “And yet, that is indeed television, like at dad’s?” Answer: “Yes.” … The conclusion is illuminating: my children were “deprived”, they watched “only DVDs”, and so it is “better at their father’s”! For information, I list some of the DVDs my children used to watch… All the Walt Disneys, Lassie, Kirikou and later, Star Wars, and the Miyasakis too…

The facilitator of our community was released at the beginning of June 2007 on condition that he reside in another region and no longer see the children. Since the parents refuse, for themselves and for their children, to recognise themselves as victims, all the minor children living in the community have had to undergo social inquiries: educator, psychologist, psychiatrist… Two have been completed and ended in a dismissal; the children’s judge’s conclusions attest that the children suffered no violence and that “the family and social environment contributes to their equilibrium”). Why do my children receive “exceptional” treatment? They are removed from their mother’s custody and from the entire environment in which they grew up, solely because their father says he is a “victim”?

And the absurdity continues. Is this the result of the precautionary principle, which exists in law only for ecological matters? The father declares himself a “victim” and is considered as such without his word being questioned, and without producing any real evidence. As for me, I am said to be “under influence” whatever I say; my words have no value, no substance, no existence. For two years I have been filing police incident reports; I have lodged a complaint (against my ex-husband for family abandonment); the facts are acknowledged by the police, but the courts take no account of them.

Why? What is the aim being pursued?

I refuse to let this be done to me, I refuse to have my life choices and my freedom taken from me, and I refuse to let my children serve as hostages.

Since it is claimed that my children were beaten (without any report from the school or the hospital, or even from the grandparents), then let them place me under formal investigation for failure to assist a person in danger.

Yet today, I consider that my children are in danger, and they want to take away my right to assist them.

From 12 January 2008, the “point rencontre” arrangement comes to an end, at the end of the six months set by the court. My ex-husband refuses to let me take the children to the cinema… and I can no longer reach them by telephone. So what is left to me and my children? To speak out publicly — that is what I wanted to do by writing this text.

Anne Frances, January 2008