The Media Treatment of the "Cults"

The Media Treatment of the “Cults”

The recent example of a France 2 programme

“Ça se discute”, 19 September 2007

by Anne Morelli, deputy director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of Religions and Secularism at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (CIERL-ULB)

It is more than ten years since Serge Halimi 1, and before him Pierre Bourdieu 2, warned us: French television is a counter-model of free and balanced information. It presents only conventional points of view, in harmony with the positions of the powers that be, and grants no space to dissidents, whom it refuses to invite or whom it censors on the set.

But you know Alphonse Daudet’s tale “Monsieur Seguin’s goat”. The little goat knows very well that all those who went up the mountain before her got devoured by the wolf, but she means to face him all the same. She trusts in her sharp little horns…

Like Monsieur Seguin’s goat, I thought myself sufficiently hardened to the media not to be trapped by an invitation from France 2. I am an old regular of the debates on RTL and of programmes on Belgian television (RTBF and VRT). I am invited there either as an “expert” (in historical or religious matters) or as a representative of secularism. I am always treated there with respect: the debate can be lively, as is sometimes the case with religious representatives, but “Controverse”, for example, is recorded at RTL in real time, most often live, and no cuts are made to it.

My only French experience (the much-missed programme “Arrêt sur images”) had seemed to me proper, and so I lent an attentive ear to the invitation made to me by France 2. A charming assistant asked me to take part in a programme of which I knew nothing and which she presented to me as an adversarial debate on the new religious movements. It was Jean-Luc Delarue’s “Ça se discute”.

The young assistant asked to receive and read my books on the subject and gave me a fair summary of them, which was, she said, to serve as a basis for the construction of the programme. She promised me they would be presented in the course of the programme.

A little worried by what I was told about Delarue, I asked to receive assurances about the serious character of the contribution I would make to the programme and about the genuinely adversarial character of the debate. I was answered firmly that victims of the “cult hunt” were invited to come and speak as much as victims of “cults”. Reassured, I agree to take part in the programme, whose date is set for 5 September.

Two days before that date, the assistant calls me back: the programme’s title has changed and incorporates the pejorative word “guru”, and moreover it will not take place live. The programme’s content must be supervised by the channel’s authorities, it will be pre-recorded and edited. Furthermore, I am informed of a very strange instruction: to avoid any publicity (sic) for one or another “cult”, I am requested not to pronounce the name of any of them!

I had thought of drawing a parallel between the equally absurd or reasonable character of Raëlian and Christian beliefs, but I am flabbergasted at having to transform “Raël” into “Tralalala”. To my question whether I could nevertheless cite the Carthusians, the assistant, not scenting my trap, answers innocently that “for them, obviously, there is no problem”!

The recording being earlier in the day than the live broadcast initially planned, and thesis defences not allowing me to leave Brussels earlier, France 2 does not hesitate to send a motorcyclist to the Gare du Nord to take me quickly to its studios. There I discover an unbelievable circus: the “spectators” are in fact docile extras who are warmed up, and among whom the programme’s managers - though it is theoretically open to the public! - are quick to spot people who took at face value the officially free access to the programme but who are unwanted there. One lady, in no way violent, nor dirty, nor aggressive, is thus marked for expulsion. First they try firmly to persuade her to leave the stands. As she cannot bring herself to do so, two heavies lift her up, lay her flat and carry her off, one holding her by the feet, the other by the shoulders! The scene will of course not appear on screen!

Moreover, the Interministerial Mission of Vigilance and Combat against the Cults, the MIVILUDES, intervened at the last minute so that the victims of the cult hunt, though duly invited (train ticket and hotel already paid) and present, would not be admitted to testify.

The programme is called “Ça se discute” (“It’s up for discussion”) but in reality no discussion is possible: the “victims of the cults” alone have the floor. They are invited, one by one, to come and testify at very great length to tragic and moving stories that happened to them sometimes more than twenty-five years ago.

A psychotherapist, from the University of Brussels like me, was invited to speak about his practice. Jean-Luc Delarue treats him with aggressive irony and, as soon as he begins his explanations, the presenter interrupts him (twice) to say: “We are not going to stay here all night listening to you”. At the second interruption, this gentleman rises with dignity and leaves the set.

For the representative of the MIVILUDES, by contrast, time is in no way counted, and she alone may intervene throughout the programme and on every subject.

As for me, after a two-hour wait on the periphery of the set (the only basket of dried fruit there bears an insolent label “reserved”, and is reserved for Mr Delarue alone!), I am finally brought on at the end of the programme. Before sitting down on the seat the psychotherapist has just left, I ask Delarue whether he will treat me more politely than his previous guest, but that will barely be the case. Time presses, and when I begin a parallel with “harmful” practices of the great religions, Delarue interrupts me to say: “It seems to me you have quite a problem with the Catholic religion”. His mockeries are automatically relayed by the laughter (recorded or spontaneous?) of the audience.

At the moment when one of the witnesses utters an enormity, I decide to intervene, but… my microphone is switched off. It is totally impossible to discuss on “Ça se discute”. Of my books, of course, there was no question.

I understand why no religious grouping accused of being a “cult” should agree to take part in such parodies of debate. This programme has, alas, obtained in 2000 and 2003 the prize for “best society magazine”.

I myself repent of having innocently fallen into this trap, which revives the anti-cult hysteria and offers no space for discussion.

On the pavement outside the studios, officials of the MIVILUDES congratulate themselves on the excellent result obtained. They have revived the anti-cult anguish and phobia which, in France, secure their strange employment, unknown in most other countries.

People duly invited but prevented from speaking fume about the time they have been made to waste.

The assistant calls back the extras who, yawning, rejoin the recording of the next show.

Crestfallen, I set off to look for a restaurant in Paris that can offer me for 15 euros (that is the maximum I was allotted!) an evening meal with a drink (McDonald’s perhaps?). It will remain for me to get reimbursed, via complicated formalities, the money I advanced for the train and that lavish meal, and above all to meditate on the risks of always wanting to verify everything for oneself, according to the principle of free enquiry that underpins the teaching of my University…

(1) Les nouveaux chiens de garde (1997)

(2) Sur la télévision (1996)

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See the video interview with Anne Morelli by the CICNS

See the CICNS clip analysing this programme