The 2008 MIVILUDES Report

A reading report by CICNS

Introduction to our commentary

The media ground was well prepared. A few days before the release of the MIVILUDES report, on 10 May, as part of the programme “Enquêtes exclusives”, M6 broadcast a “report” on Reiki, shamanism and satanism. On 13 May, L’Express ran the cover headline “Scientology, investigation into the cult that frightens”. On 19 May, as every year, MIVILUDES delivered its report with much fanfare, and its thunderous declarations echoed through numerous media: “A new list of cult movements is needed” (Le Figaro), “When charlatans pass themselves off as therapists” (La Croix), “These (new) cults that threaten us” (France Soir), “Alert in France over the use of ‘therapies’ by cults” (Le Monde), “The shadow of cults hangs over mental health” (20 Minutes), “A third of psychotherapists come from cult circles” (Europe 1), and so many others… the Journal du Dimanche, Métro, L’Express, Libération, France 3, BFM Radio… Ad nauseam, this “information” flooded the French media landscape. Alarmist statements and the most fanciful figures were repeated in the ears of the French in an incantatory manner, and compliant journalists took part, without the slightest distance or the slightest request for a source or for the other side, in this affecting survey of a country under siege.

Mr Georges Fenech, president of the Mission, undertook a marathon to broadcast MIVILUDES’s “good word” on a loop. It is striking to note that he announced to the press figures which are not published in the MIVILUDES report — such as the “20,000 young people and adolescents” affected by satanism in France (the report indicates on the contrary that this phenomenon is virtually non-existent), the “5,000 children deprived of school by their parents, cult followers”, or the 500 or 600 groups with dérives sectaires, announced everywhere — to such a degree that one insufficiently conscientious journalist announced that the report publishes the list of them, whereas the report, which contains no fewer than 650 occurrences of the word “cult”, not only mentions no figure but also mentions none of these famous “cult movements”, apart from Scientology and Amour et Miséricorde.

Thus Mr Fenech’s assertions were not set down in writing in an official document; they are conveyed only by the media.

Of the ten or so programmes we listened to, not one official participant was troubled that no representative of the groups being pointed at was present in the studio. Most of the participants agreed that the word “cult” was not on the agenda and that it was rather a matter of speaking of dérives sectaires, but all continued to use the term during the debates, feigning ignorance of the impact produced by the repetition of this extremely loaded word. None of the participants, of course, mentioned the damage done by anti-cult policy to the thousands of honest and sincere people nonetheless described as “cult followers” on every airwave.

We had visited Mr Jean-Michel Roulet in 2006, and Mr Fenech’s position is evidently identical, as a paragraph of our commentary on the 2007 report shows:

“We met Mr Roulet on 24 October 2006 and asked him whether he was aware of the discriminations suffered by many honest and sincere people who are targeted directly or indirectly by French policy on combating cults. His answer was that he was not aware of it, but was nonetheless interested to hear about it. Following our account (which was subsequently completed by further information), we were able to observe that the president of MIVILUDES was not hearing what we said, and his conclusion was: “Were there but a single victim, the action pursued is justified!”. This sentence expresses well the will to neglect the significant collateral effects of a course of action, provided it answers to the victim-focused approach of the moment.

In this media chorus, only the newspaper La Croix stood somewhat apart, in an article entitled “MIVILUDES engages in a trial of strength with the Ministry of the Interior”, when it recalled the words of Mrs Michèle Alliot-Marie: “As proof, this letter addressed on 15 May by Michèle Alliot-Marie to prefects, police prefects and directors of the police and the gendarmerie, aimed at the “reinforcement of the operational character” of the campaign against dérives sectaires: “As my circular of 23 January 2009 reminded you, I ask you to give priority, in your action, to the logic of seeking and legally characterising facts that may be punished, and not to a logic of lists of movements liable to commit dérives sectaires.”

The Ministry considers moreover that this arrangement risks contravening the European Convention on Human Rights, notably article 9, which protects freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

Another circular from the Ministry of the Interior, of 25 February 2008, asked prefects to orient their action in the direction indicated by the Prime Minister’s circular of 27 May 2005, where there was “clearly indicated the necessity of moving from a reference to lists of movements liable to commit dérives sectaires to a logic aimed at seeking and legally characterising facts that may be punished.”

It is astonishing that Georges Fenech, president of MIVILUDES — whose “first mission is to “coordinate the action of all the public authorities” [1], who proclaims on France 3 the “total consensus of the French political class, right and left” and declares that he “welcomes the action of Michèle Alliot-Marie” [2] — should be so little inclined to apply these directives of the Ministry of the Interior. What indeed of these “facts that may be punished”?

The content

“MIVILUDES announces a new mobilisation of the public authorities, which have moved from “observation” to “action”.

Vocational training

“They may, notably in the field of health or psychology, advocate techniques or methods not proven or not recognised by the competent authorities. The degree of dangerousness increases when they are accompanied by mental destabilisation, exorbitant financial demands and attacks on physical integrity.”

To justify these remarks, MIVILUDES mentions a survey carried out among the regional inspection services “between the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008, in order better to identify the reality of these training courses and their providers”. However, no result of this survey is presented, apart from one percentage: “90% of regions declare having been confronted with files presenting a serious risk of charlatanism and/or dérive sectaire.” How many regions are involved? How was this “serious risk” assessed? Did this survey present the guarantees it appears to wish to demand of training bodies? The vagueness of the information supplied allows neither an appreciation of it nor an evaluation of the results obtained. The terms “mental destabilisation, exorbitant financial demands and attacks on physical integrity”, hammered home since 1999, are no less purely theoretical and unfounded, being supported by no verifiable data.

A thorough study of the testimonies of the representatives of the various Ministries before the Commission of inquiry into cults and minors in 2006 confirmed us in our mistrust of MIVILUDES’s assertions. Everyone is invited to use their free judgement and to check for themselves.

The lobbying of the “cult sphere”

There follows a description of CICNS’s actions, including a procedure directed at the UN, cited in a very factual manner but tending to minimise the importance and value of the actions conducted by associations campaigning for freedom of conscience, by attributing to them malevolent intentions and calumnious practices disrespectful of France’s “virtuous” action against cults.

MIVILUDES clumsily attempts to lump everyone together with Scientology.

“This practice is akin to the so-called “black propaganda” method which is the hallmark of a famous cult movement and which consists in denigrating by every means those who combat it, in “depopularising the enemy to the point of erasing him totally”, as its founding guru recommended.”

“One cannot but be struck by the violence of such accusations. Yet, replaced in the context of the lobbying of the cult sphere, they take on another dimension and are rich in instruction about the disinformation strategy of those who have the art of reversing roles by passing themselves off as victims of infringements of Human Rights when they never cease to flout them”

MIVILUDES does not answer the arguments submitted to it but confines itself to pointing at the supposed bad intentions of those who criticise it. Mr Fenech quite simply “forgot” to reproduce the terms of our Observatory project, which proposes reference to numerous other specialities and competences for evaluating the various subjects of controversy raised by the “campaign against dérives sectaires”. It also denigrates university researchers, preferring to them the “objectivity” of the intelligence services and of apostates:

“It is a matter of recommending an objectivity and a neutrality supposedly lacking in MIVILUDES and in the intelligence services, and of relying on the expertise of academics, specialists in religions — the very ones, duly referenced by the cult sphere, who never cease to denigrate the actors of vigilance and of the campaign against dérives sectaires and to cast doubt on the reliability of the testimonies of ex-followers. This proposal is extremely reductive, since it assimilates all action of vigilance and combat to infringements of religious freedom, whereas the essential concerns of the State and of the associations in this matter today involve fields such as health or training, where it is often difficult to detect the slightest element of spirituality.”

It seems to us rather that MIVILUDES’s vision is very reductive. A spirituality “difficult to detect” may nonetheless be present, and MIVILUDES has not the capacity to be judge in the matter. It is truly extraordinary that it should claim to be in a position to detect the element of spirituality in a human activity, when it regularly declares itself concerned with neither spirituality nor religion.

As Georges Fenech says, during a programme on cults, in reply to a sociologist of religion who was replacing freedom of thought and freedom of religion in their French historical context: “What you are saying is very interesting but it does not concern me. The subject that interests us this evening has nothing to do with religions.” [6]

The campaign against “dérives sectaires”

The second part of the report concerns the “campaign against dérives sectaires”. It presents a contribution from the Ministry of the Interior (national gendarmerie), whose objectivity — and above all whose very clear objective — can indeed be measured: to forbid anyone to think outside the “social consensus”, out of respect for individual liberties and public order:

“The particular framework of mental hold is characteristic of dérives sectaires. The repressive action of the State must be implemented as soon as a certain number of criteria are met:

– One or more persons who begin to attach themselves to ideas conveyed to them which differ from the ideas usually shared by the social consensus (…).”

There follows a presentation (promotion) of the French anti-cult associations. These associations find themselves “unfortunately” confronted with a few troublesome obstacles which they will be obliged to circumvent, even at the cost of violating individual liberties — how else to proceed? Let us expect some new legislation shortly to be presented before at least seven deputies in the National Assembly:

“While it must be acknowledged that the referents and units set up at departmental and regional level are of a nature to facilitate the circulation of information about the communities established, the methodical exchange of information nonetheless comes up against legal obstacles (professional secrecy, the collection of intelligence and the automated processing of data) which need to be lifted by the legislator if this apparatus is to become truly efficient in terms of combating dérives sectaires.”

The case of England is interesting, since INFORM is unavoidable; but as INFORM is partly financed by the British government and does not go in for crude anti-cultism, the report insists particularly on the complaints of the other (anti-cult) associations which do not have the same hearing and the same subsidies!

“INFORM’s situation of monopoly of expertise for the benefit of the Government, and its financing from public funds, give rise to sharp criticism from the other associations which receive no financial aid from the State and which have difficulty surviving. (p. 74)”

“INFORM’s situation, both as regards the financing it receives from the State and as regards the positions taken by its president and its analysis, judged “ambiguous” towards “new religious movements”, places this Charity under the crossfire of criticism from the other associations, which would like to be able to enjoy the same resources.”

The height of irony from MIVILUDES… financed from the public purse. Avoiding the waste of public money on a “non-problem” might be a good idea in a context of economic crisis costing the State billions. Moreover, MIVILUDES works exclusively with anti-cult associations declared to be of public utility and financed by the State, and does not appear troubled by a partial and vindictive approach.

The health dossier and psychotherapists

A great deal of pseudo-historical and pseudo-philosophical discourse in this section, which insists on the link between “mental manipulation and cult indoctrination”. We invite the reader to consult our dossier “Mental manipulation”, a notion which is unfortunately becoming ever more commonplace, without scientific basis, but by using the effect of repetition and the anxiety associated with these subjects.

”(…) in France, 5.2% of the general population has undergone or is still undergoing psychotherapy, that is, nearly three million people. Psychoanalysis occupies about 30% of therapies, while non-analytic therapies represent in total 70% of treatments: 20% cognitive-behavioural therapies, 12% humanistic-existential therapies, 12% family or couple therapies… and 26% therapies poorly defined by the beneficiaries – still insufficiently informed.”

“Since those around a person in psychotherapy are strongly affected, the study assessed the impact of this type of care not at the 3 million users but at a population of at least 8 to 10 million. Some years later, and given the growth of supply and demand in this field, it is reasonable to relate the impact of psychotherapeutic practices to about 12 million people, which is far from negligible in a national community which today numbers 64 million individuals.

There are said to be 38 “official” therapeutic methods as against 60 for non-conventional practices with a therapeutic aim (PNCAVT). The report gives the lists of these methods.

“Certain PNCAVT present risks and characteristics close to dérives sectaires: an esoteric or mystical foundation, blind attachment to the founder-promoter of the method, network forms of organisation, commercial functioning by ever more costly stages for the user, proselytism. Admittedly, many PNCAVT present no cult character — such as, for example, practices inspired by traditional Chinese medicine.”

This exception for “traditional Chinese medicine” follows the Protocol of cooperation in the matter of traditional Chinese medicine between the government of the French Republic and the government of the People’s Republic of China, signed in Beijing on 1 March 2007 by the Minister of health at the time, Dr Douste-Blazy [7].

Regarding psychotherapists, it is important to note that the percentages mentioned in the few lines that follow — that is, 70% of psychotherapists “recognised” in one way or another, and 30% of “self-declared” psychotherapists — were announced by Georges Fenech and taken up by numerous media to speak of 70% professionals and 30% “charlatans”, as though these were “scientific” and incontestable data, since they emanated from a body as official as MIVILUDES, with all the authority that status confers on it.

“Three categories of professionals intervene in the field of psychotherapies. This population, on the basis of converging assessments, involves about 15,000 practitioners, whose number is growing steadily. This population is divided between:

– 10 to 15% holders of a doctorate in medicine, notably in the psychiatric speciality.

– 25% to 30% psychologists trained in the faculties of human sciences and in possession of master’s degrees in clinical psychology.

– 15 to 20% psychoanalysts benefiting from supervision and regulation by their peers.

– 25% to 30% professionals declaring themselves psychotherapists, claiming various disciplines and with heterogeneous training paths.”

Regarding the Accoyer Amendment to regulate psychotherapies, not yet applied:

“This text constitutes an immense hope for victims, families, defence associations and professionals who observe the damage done by groups or individuals of the cult sphere. Unfortunately, in the absence of an implementing text, this arrangement remains to this day a dead letter.”

Two therapies particularly worry MIVILUDES: the first is Germanic medicine. Dr Hamer is to “health” what Scientology is to “religion”: a convenient scapegoat… and “the falsification of “recovered” memory”, or the mote and the beam, which:

”(…) is characterised by a diversion of psychotherapeutic methods and practices. On second analysis it is often akin to various currents, including those of the New Age.”

Satanism

In a programme of 26/04/09 on RTBF, the leading Belgian radio station, the sociologist Nicolas Walzer [4] observes: “One cannot make a debate on a subject as polemical as satanism healthy if one does not start from sound bases — that is, ask entirely obvious questions: on the one hand, what is satanism, and on the other, which young people are we talking about (…) There is a whole fantasy that behind satanism there would be bloodthirsty practices, and so on, but on the ground that is absolutely not the case. (…) These satanists are not a danger to public order”.

The SDIG (which inherited the “dérives sectaires” files from the Renseignements Généraux), in a long chapter of the report, essentially take up the thesis of MIVILUDES’s 2007 report, enriched with a few named and quantified data which in reality invalidate the thesis of a significant danger to society. MIVILUDES contents itself with a general review of the supposed cases of criminality associated with satanism in Europe, which here again tend to show the insignificance of the problem and France’s isolation in its current preoccupation.

Selected extracts:

Satanism and desecrations:

Page 20 of the report: “The substantial number of desecrations of graves recorded over several years and the signature of their perpetrators confirms moreover that France is not immune from the satanists’ capacity for harm.”

Pages 23-24 of the report: “In 2008, out of a total of 266 sites affected (cemeteries, places of worship and calvaries), 22 present an established satanic character. (…) The exclusively satanic character of the outrages must be put into perspective.”

Satanism and collective suicide:

Some of them (young people who frequent the Internet) may then be tempted to use blogs and discussion forums not only to share their unhappiness but also to prepare a collective suicide together.”

For “proof”:

“Thus in September 2005, two schoolgirls of 13 and 14 took their own lives (…) had grown close because of their shared attraction to the gothic universe.”

- “On 31 May 2008 (…) suicide (…) of two young goths aged 16.” in Belgium.

These are the only two facts, in addition to the desecrations, credited to satanism by the SDIG.

MIVILUDES’s conclusion to its European review of satanism: “In the future the satanist current therefore merits very serious consideration on the part of the public authorities, through a thorough study of its networks, its true aims, and its development within our modern societies.”

Whatever the dangers of the Gothic, of Black Metal music or of satanism, one can only observe that MIVILUDES in reality turns its back on those who do carry out thorough studies, and that satanism constitutes for it one more accessory to the scarecrow it brandishes before the French population. The “cult spectre” was missing the devil’s signature. In a few “reports to the prime minister”, the addition is inscribed in the collective unconscious.

We invite readers to consult our digest of the book by Nicolas Walzer, sociologist: “Satan Profane – Portrait of a darkened youth” — a book which is moreover, “curiously”, not mentioned in the MIVILUDES report, any more than is the one edited by Olivier Bobineau in 2008, Satanism. What danger for society?, Éditions Paris Pygmalion.

Administrative activities

There follows a long list of the contributions of State bodies to the action against cults during the year 2008. A few notable passages:

Ministry of health and sports:

“I wish in particular that the activities which present a dérive sectaire by attacking more particularly psychologically fragile persons, as well as those who suffer from serious pathologies in a particular context, should be the object of wide public information. The aim is that each person may thus perceive the major difference which exists between the promises made to them and the reality of the facts.”

The establishment, by an order of 3 February 2009 [8], of a Technical Support Group, one of whose missions is the “aid in identifying and classifying dangerous — or on the contrary promising — PNCAVT”.

“This support group will also follow the work commissioned from other institutions, such as INSERM, which has agreed to carry out a scientific evaluation of certain practices such as, for example, mesotherapy.”

To carry out this mission successfully, it will be necessary to include neutral observers with no financial interest in the health market, and to let the creators of these methods speak. We shall therefore follow with interest the progress of this study and its conclusions.

Georges Fenech’s comment in France Soir about this Technical Support Group leads us to expect nothing good. Already, “promising” practices are becoming “non-dangerous” practices…

“It was a long-standing demand. At last, this technical support group has come into being. It is going to begin a long-haul task of identifying and classifying non-conventional practices with a therapeutic aim as dangerous or non-dangerous, because there exist non-conventional psychotherapies which are not necessarily harmful. But one must know how to sort out what belongs to psychotherapy — established and acceptable, dispensed by people of good faith and competent — from charlatanesque methods into which organisations of a cult character and a great number of ill-intentioned individuals rush.”

MIVILUDES has not lost its taste for figures and vague concepts, despite the denials from the Ministries:

“It must be recalled that nearly 60,000 children live in a cult-type context, a situation liable to be prejudicial to those same children.”

Ministry of foreign affairs:

”(…) the Miviludes exists because the victims of dérives sectaires expect to be supported and helped by the public authorities.”

Another interpretation would be that the victims of dérives sectaires exist because MIVILUDES and the public authorities promise them support. There have never been so many victims as since “someone” has been taking care of them…

Ministry of labour, social relations, family, solidarity and the city

“Cult movements can already be convicted for violation of labour law — for example for moral harassment, excessive working hours, absence of remuneration, or indeed absence of an employment contract (CGI of Paris, 10 July 1986, SCC ECOOVIE). Moreover, by making followers work on a falsely voluntary basis, cults incur prosecution for concealed employment, having been the object of no social or tax declaration (TGI of Lure, 22 June 2001, HERB).”

Interministerial delegation for the family:

MIVILUDES complains that: “Unofficial sites are cited before that of MIVILUDES, which comes 13th in Google”.

A statutory reform of MIVILUDES is under study:

“Following the audit carried out by the Court of Auditors on the financial years 2003 to 2007: replace the current Executive Steering Committee with a more restricted Operational Council, and the current Orientation Council with a likewise more restricted board of directors, without change in substance or in the sense of the composition of these two organs. (…)”

“Creation of a unit of operational experts in the field, which could be called upon by investigators and magistrates seised of a file appearing to present a dimension of cult hold.”

“Thus, for example, the texts arising from the law of 12 June 2001, known as the About-Picard law, are too rarely implemented, including in files where, from the Miviludes’s point of view, there would have been grounds for applying them.”

The report’s conclusion

The report’s conclusion mentions Mr Fenech’s visit on 11 December 2008 to Chaussin, to the living place of the “Amour et Miséricorde” community.

“What better conclusion to give to this 2008 annual report than the letter addressed on 6 January 2009 to the President of MIVILUDES, following his trip to Dijon, by a relative of victims under the hold of the “Amour et Miséricorde” movement”

Mr Georges Fenech has boasted, on every media outlet, of being a man of the field. In reality he is not a man of the field but a man of media coups, as his visits to Tabitha’s Place, Les Béatitudes and Amour et Misécorde show — visits which end invariably in a full-blown media lynching of a group with no means at its disposal to reply.

The report ends thus on this “gem”:

“MIVILUDES has no power of investigation. On receipt of testimonies or complaints, and after a first work of grouping and of examining their apparent reliability, it brings them to the knowledge of the competent authorities. It is not for it to establish the reality of the facts denounced to it.”

…but it is for it to denounce them, even if their reliability is merely apparent!

Annexes

Law of 14/11/08 on the protection of witnesses before parliamentary commissions

Circular of February 2008 from Michèle Alliot-Marie to prefects, which recalls:

that the legal arsenal in place is sufficient to answer the campaign against dérives sectaires,
that the notion of cult is a notion of fact and not of law,
that membership is a matter of opinion, whose freedom is a constitutional principle

She also recalls the founding texts:

art. 10 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man of ‘79,
art. 1 of the constitution of ‘58,
art. 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights,

and specifies that the campaign against dérives sectaires must not stigmatise currents of thought: a reminder of art. 1 of the 1905 law on freedom of conscience and of worship in the respect of public order.

Michèle Alliot-Marie places the notion of public order at the centre of the campaign against dérives sectaires and asks that each case be studied factually.

She then lists all the existing legal measures permitting the dissolution of associations which do not respect the laws or which infringe public order.

She advocates the abandonment of all reference to lists in the search for dérives sectaires.

She asks that prefects constitute working groups inspired by the GIR, which will have to secure the actions conducted on the legal plane so as to avoid the State being non-suited or convicted.

- Circular of 23 January 2009 from Michèle Alliot-Marie to prefects:

She recalls the instructions of the February 2008 circular to be applied in 2009, notably the necessity of moving from a reference to lists to a logic aimed at legally characterising the facts.

She recalls that vigilance against dérives sectaires now falls within the field of competence of the departmental council for the prevention of delinquency, the fight against drugs, the fight against dérives sectaires and assistance to victims.

CICNS’s conclusion

We leave the last word to Nicolas Walzer, sociologist:

“With two colleagues, we had done a placement within MIVILUDES for four months, where we really became aware of MIVILUDES’s lack of rigour, which was genuinely problematic — and we are not the only ones to point out this problem. All the sociologists of religion at present are raising objections to MIVILUDES’s conclusions, to such a degree that Nathalie Luca, a sociologist fairly well known for working on cult problems, resigned from this MIVILUDES, just as we did, because we quite simply realised there was an alarmism, a lack of administration of proof, conclusions that were absolutely not scientific and, above all, a great many conflations — conflations which are unfortunately reproduced by the press.” [9]

Without further ado…

[1] MIVILUDES 2008 report, p. 5

[2] BFM Radio, 19 May 2009, 12h-15h

[3] http://podcasting.rtbf.be/montre/index.htm?key=LP-DIEU&chaine=lapremiere (26/04/09)

[4] Doctor of sociology and researcher at the CEAQ (Paris V, Sorbonne), Nicolas Walzer has published several works on the new beliefs of youth, notably Anthropologie du metal extrême (Camion Blanc, 2007).

[5] http://reseau.parental.free.fr/spip/spip.php?article83

[6] Georges Fenech, France 3, Ce soir ou jamais, Tuesday 19 May 2009

[7] “This agreement aims to develop links in the fields of fundamental and clinical research, regulatory harmonisation and industrial development.” http://www.ambafrance-cn.org/Visite-officielle-en-Chine-de-M-Philippe-Douste-Blazy-Ministre-des.html

[8] Order of 3 February 2009 creating a technical support group on non-conventional practices with a therapeutic aim

[9] Podcast of 26 April 2009 on RTBF

The 2008 MIVILUDES Report

Sources