An Independent Observatory of Alternative Spiritual, Educational and Therapeutic Movements: The CICNS's Proposal

An independent Observatory of alternative movements with a spiritual, educational or therapeutic vocation, in France

– Creation project –

A proposal from the CICNS

Initial version: 2007

Updated, March 2013

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Contents

Purpose of the document
State of play
The actors present: The public authorities; The anti-cult associations; The apostates and the victims; The judicial apparatus; The media; Civil society; The alternative movements with a spiritual, educational or therapeutic vocation; Researchers in the social sciences and other research disciplines; The other countries of Western Europe; The international organisations; The associations for the defence of spiritual, educational and therapeutic freedom
Current French policy towards alternative movements with a spiritual, educational or therapeutic vocation is not constructive
An independent Observatory of alternative movements with a spiritual, educational or therapeutic vocation: The interest of an independent Observatory; Mission of the Observatory; Organisation of the Observatory; Financing of the Observatory
Opening the door

1. Purpose of the document

This document proposes to demonstrate the interest of an independent Observatory of alternative movements with a spiritual, educational or therapeutic vocation, in France, in response to a public action named “the fight against dérives sectaires” and judged inadequate by numerous observers of our society. A few broad outlines of this Observatory are then traced in order to prompt a reflection with a view to arriving at a concrete project.

2. State of play

The terms used within the framework of the fight against dérives sectaires — a fight which, in substance and in form, is not content to target deviant behaviours, as its wording might allow one to suppose, but aims to denigrate entire groups and their practices — cover no precise sociological or legal reality and have acquired an extremely pejorative, indeed defamatory, sense (see the current understanding of the word “cult”). The vaster and legitimate question of the place of these minority movements in society is deliberately occulted, to be reduced only to an alarmist vision of the situation of the people and groups concerned and of their possible negative influence.

The question of the “cults” was “settled” politically and in the media before having been analysed in depth. That explains why there exists no proof, either sociological or legal, of the alleged social scourge that “dérives sectaires” committed in the “cults” are said to constitute — there exists in fact abundant evidence of the contrary: see on this subject our documentary film “La France antisectes : état des lieux – Plaidoyer pour les libertés fondamentales”[1].

Consequently, this subject of society is locked in France into a “single-track thinking”. Anyone bold enough to put into perspective the anti-cult phobia that has developed there after more than thirty years of struggle is accused of “going over to the enemy” and runs the risk of a public social and professional discrediting.

3. The actors present

The public authorities

The public authorities are the principal architects of a generalisation and an institutionalisation of anti-cult phobia (we refer the reader to the research work of the sociologists to understand its historical evolution and its ins and outs, for example by consulting certain CICNS interviews[2]).

At the executive level, the MIVILUDES (Interministerial Mission of Vigilance and of the Fight against Dérives Sectaires), charged since 2002 with the question of the “cults” and attached to the Prime Minister, has progressively hardened its action so as to resemble its ancestor the MILS (Interministerial mission for the fight against the cults). Its action resembles a propaganda operating on several mechanisms:

To lay claim to an absolute respect for beliefs, for therapeutic practices, for freedom of conscience, etc., in order to justify itself in a discourse that is discriminatory in fact.
To use henceforth pejorative and insulting terms such as “cult”, “guru” while claiming they are inoffensive and asserting that it concerns itself only with “dérives sectaires”[3].
To associate systematically with the alternative spiritual, educational or therapeutic movements (that is to say the groups designated as “cults”) a new deviance: mental manipulation[4], a pseudo-scientific notion, recognised as such by a majority of researchers, as well as its corollaries: the “loss of free will”, “psychological subjection”, the “defect of consent”.
To use rumour and fear by evoking the thesis of the social scourge without bringing the slightest proof of it.
To disinform by using unfounded figures which, because they feed fears and rumours, are not called into question (such as for example the assertion that 500,000 people are victims of “dérives sectaires”[5] or that 60,000 children are in danger in the “cults”[6]).
To adopt an exacerbated victim approach (the “victims of cults”) and to use the media’s appetite for the sensational by communicating in an emotional mode.

The MIVILUDES can lay claim to no methodology or approach of knowledge. It has resolutely dissociated itself from the research institutes, notably sociological ones. After more than ten years of operation, it has provided no serious enquiry in relation to its mission.

The disproportionate anti-cult arsenal it has helped to put in place nevertheless rests on this absence of proof: Mr or Mrs “dérives sectaires” are present in every region; these correspondents can be contacted, with that title, either at the Prefecture, at the gendarmerie grouping, at the education authority Rector’s office, at the Regional health agency, at the DIRECCTE, at the Departmental Council of the Ordre des Médecins, at the Regional council of the Ordre des pharmaciens or at the Departmental council of the Ordre des masseurs-kinésithérapeutes. The MIVILUDES has concluded more than thirty partnerships to fight dérives sectaires with the ministries, the mayors of France, the local authorities, the Council of the Ordre des médecins, the National school of the magistracy, the ENA, etc. The MIVILUDES prompted the creation, at the University Paris-Descartes, of a postgraduate university diploma making it possible “to provide a thorough complementary theoretical training on cultic hold and processes, to develop the capacity to identify, in everyone’s daily professional practice, the victims of cults and the traumas they have undergone”[7]. The MIVILUDES has created a list of suspect practices and movements, baptised a “referential”, supposed to be accessible by “justice professionals, associations, the movements themselves, the public authorities, the ministries and the local elected representatives who often question us about the hire of a hall for such and such a lecture or about granting someone approval as a childminder”[8]. In practice, the minorities have only very difficult access to it and have no means of putting forward contradictory information.

The climate of generalised suspicion, the repressive violence regularly committed against groups or practices qualified as “cults” or associated with “dérives sectaires”, generate damage that is not evaluated (impact on the social, professional and associative life of the targeted people).

The MIVILUDES does not restrict its action to the observation of the strict respect of public order but, by designating what is dangerous according to obscure and arbitrary criteria, intervenes thereby in the space of freedom of conscience “guaranteed” by article 1 of the 1905 law. It is nevertheless fitting to note the role of moderator played, up to now, by the Ministry of the Interior and the Central Bureau of Religions[9] on the action of the MIVILUDES and more generally on the question of the “cults”.

At the legislative level, a study group on the “cults”, composed of about a dozen deputies, is at the origin of no fewer than three parliamentary commissions of enquiry on this theme (1995, 1999, 2006). None of them respected the adversarial principle, nor took into account the factual elements contradicting the thesis of the social scourge, even when they were explicit, as was the case during the hearings of the 2006 commission of enquiry on the theme “Stolen childhood”[10]. The position of the National Assembly on the question of the cults seems to be the result of the activism of this very restricted but nevertheless sufficiently influential group to impose its views. The displayed unanimity seems rather to flow from an oriented and reductive presentation of the question, resting on a possible “intellectual laziness” of the other parliamentarians: the psychosis, even unfounded, against the “cults” being installed in the public mind after thirty years of media hammering in this direction, to fight the “cults” is henceforth electorally profitable. Reflection seems to stop there. It was in any case judged sufficient to vote through liberticidal laws such as the About-Picard law[11] (the so-called “anti-cult” law: although severely criticised by the Council of Europe, it made it possible to introduce into the penal code, under the undefined expression “psychological subjection”, the notion of “mental manipulation”) or such as the law on the immunity of witnesses in parliamentary commissions of enquiry[12] (voted following the 2006 commission of enquiry on the “cults”).

In 2012, the Senate launched a fourth parliamentary enquiry on the “cults”, in the domain of health. Contrary to the deputies, the senators allowed contradictory opinions to be expressed[13].

The anti-cult associations

The anti-cult associations were (in the 1970s) the first catalysts of public action to draw attention to the spiritual minorities and have become the reference source of information for the public authorities. The UNADFI (National Union of Associations for the Defence of Families and the Individual victims of cults) is recognised as being of public utility and is subsidised by more than 95% by the State. The CCMM (Centre Against Mental Manipulations) is recognised by the Ministry of Youth and Sports. These two associations sit on the Steering Council of the MIVILUDES.

The instrumentalisation of the public authorities by these associations, quasi civil-servantised, has considerably unbalanced the debate by favouring an outrageous victim approach founded solely on the testimony of “those leaving cults”[14], or “apostates”, and by generalising a policy of rumour and of the “commonplace”.

These associations are taking, little by little and without any recognised competence, the place of the sociologists of religions and other scientific communities in evaluating alternative beliefs and practices. They do not hesitate to establish lists of “suspect” persons or groups, thus taking over from the deputies who, since Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin’s circular of 2005, have stopped this practice from another age.

The way in which these associations have integrated themselves into the anti-cult arsenal of the French public authorities is a unique phenomenon among democratic countries; it must be noted that a leader of the UNADFI has been convicted of defamation[15].

The apostates and the victims

The apostates (people who have belonged to a spiritual movement and turn against it) or those who invoke “dérives sectaires” against an alternative therapeutic or educational practice after having adopted it, today have an almost untouchable status of victim. Their complaints, without any other form of verification, are sufficient to trigger police assaults of extreme violence[16] and to place in police custody people who will have benefited from no preliminary right to speak.

If the suffering of apostates or of those who declare themselves victims are serious subjects, their testimony alone is not sufficient to justify the police violence that frequently ensues, the immediate suspicion of dangerousness and the media lynching accompanying their complaints against their former group of belonging, which orient the possible criminal proceedings.

It is probable that a supervised dialogue would make it possible to defuse many delicate situations that subsequently worsen inextricably, notably through the intermediary of the anti-cult associations, which do not seem to have as their objective the appeasement of conflicts but their envenoming, in order, it seems, to eradicate alternative beliefs and practices from French soil.

As in all human groups, people may be the victims of slip-ups and excesses committed by third parties within the alternative movements with a spiritual, educational or therapeutic vocation. The treatment of these excesses can be founded only on “concrete elements, established facts that are criminally reprehensible”[17].

The question that naturally comes next is: “How many infractions, offences or crimes are committed in these alternative movements?”, notably by comparing these figures with other sectors of society, in order to determine whether these groups are particular hotbeds of delinquency. There exists no answer to this question, because no serious statistical study has been made on the subject in thirty years of fighting the “cults” and of justifying an impressive French anti-cult apparatus that is unique in the world.

The judicial apparatus

If the judicial apparatus remains the last rampart against anti-cult single-track thinking, it nevertheless undergoes the pressure of public opinion, of the media and of political power in “cult” affairs, notably the prosecutors in close relation with the chancellery, which moreover does not hesitate to “sensitise” the presidents of the tribunaux d’instance and de grande instance as well[18]. Moreover, the MIVILUDES organises intense lobbying at the National School of the Magistracy.

To the difficulty of remaining neutral and independent is added the difficulty of having to circumvent terms that are not defined in the penal code (“cults”, “dérives sectaires”, “guru”, etc.) but which, with their negative charge, form part of everyday language.

The About-Picard law obliges magistrates to rely on the opinion of experts who, today, do not represent the ad hoc scientific communities but express their personal views, whereas the consensus of those scientific communities ought to have appeared indispensable before introducing propositions as elusive as “mental manipulation” or “psychological subjection” into the penal code. The result is that judges have, wisely, until now refused to apply the About-Picard law in the very great majority of cases. It is to be hoped that they will continue in this path until the repeal of this law.

It seems that there is in France an inevitability of having to pursue proceedings as far as the European Court of Human Rights if a complainant or an accused wishes to obtain a fair trial in a “cult” affair. France has already been condemned on four occasions for violation of article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, on religious freedom, in trials opposing it to spiritual minorities.

The media

The media have amply demonstrated (with very rare exceptions) that they are a failed counter-power on the question of the “cults”[19][20]. They have in fact become the relays and amplifiers of anti-cult psychosis. They thus appear as spokespersons for public action. The search for objectivity and for facts is beside the point; only ratings or readership count. This maintained ignorance (the rare investigations carried out being almost systematically oriented in the direction of amalgam and generalisation: see our reviews of television reports[21]) gives them a considerable power of discredit. Since a certain number of “victims of cults” are defended in the process, every abuse is permitted. The theme of the “cults” is one of the rare ones where the adversarial principle is delegitimised as a matter of course in the classic media.

Civil society

Civil society is the principal target, “consenting” most of the time, of the disinformation and the fear on the question of the “cults”. A great part of it will content itself with the commonplaces and amalgams regularly diffused by the media, because the question does not really concern it (this corresponds to the non-existence, from a sociological point of view, of the cult problematic in the everyday life of the majority of citizens). But thirty years of hammering on the dangerousness of the “cults” and their “invasion of the social fabric” leave traces in the collective unconscious. It is thus that a survey commissioned by the MIVILUDES (June 2011) reports that 42% of citizens perceive “the cults as a threat to their family and friendly circle”[22].

This sensitivity to the fear of the “cults” is not, however, in our view synonymous with a closure to balanced information, if it were available. For the people who are directly concerned or simply interested in the reality of the alternative movements with a spiritual, educational or therapeutic vocation, the Internet provides a diversified but profuse source of information, and therefore difficult to sort and synthesise. They thus have no access to a reference point of contact that would cover all their questions.

The alternative movements with a spiritual, educational or therapeutic vocation

This population is the target of the French anti-cult arsenal, through the rumour that poisons the social environment, through discriminations in the associative or professional domain, etc. Certain people undergo, on the basis of simple accusations, a police violence that one thought reserved for the worst terrorists[23].

The sufficiently large groups can have recourse to long and costly judicial proceedings to defend themselves (they are moreover reproached for it, the designated “cults” having the indecency to defend themselves!), but most honest and sincere people confronted with rumour are at a loss.

The ambient psychosis has generated an anti-cult reflex of protection within this population itself, including in the groups classed as dangerous “cults” by the public authorities: “Do not mix us up with the ‘real cults’!”.

Researchers in the social sciences and other research disciplines

Serious researchers in the social sciences and, by extension, all the people (notably among jurists) who have studied the question of the “cults” are almost unanimous in recognising the absence of a social scourge — the one that “dérives sectaires” are said to constitute — and the deficit of an approach of knowledge in the action of the public authorities. These experts and their scientific communities are excluded from the work of the MIVILUDES, which proposes no substantive reflection but only tools of repression.

In the accepted anti-cult climate, the most courageous of these researchers risk a professional delegitimation if they openly criticise public action[24]. Research work on the question of the “cults” is discredited, wasted, indeed discouraged[25].

The other countries of Western Europe

The majority of the countries of Western Europe, confronted with the same questions, have adopted an approach diametrically opposed to the one taken by France[26]. It is unseemly to imagine that the authorities of those countries would choose to protect their citizens less against possible dangers. Only Belgium seems to want to imitate France with the CIAOSN (Centre for Information and Advice on Harmful Cultic Organisations), a body of which it must nevertheless be noted that it is an independent authority and that its management of the adversarial principle is effective. Belgium also has inclinations to equip itself with an About-Picard-type law. Otherwise, the United Kingdom, Sweden, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Italy and Germany have all adopted a tolerant and respectful position with regard to the alternative spiritual, educational or therapeutic movements.

The international organisations

The international organisations offer a space of expression for the defence of alternative spiritual, educational or therapeutic practices. If their recommendations have no immediate binding effect, they at least make it possible to train the spotlight on sensitive points.

In 2006, the UN, through the voice of its rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, published a report critical of French policy in the matter[27]. Within the UN also, the “universal periodic review” for respect for human rights allows NGOs to express their point of view for each country[28].

The OSCE, in its HDIM programme (Human Dimension Implementation Meeting), organises every year a colloquium on religious freedom, also allowing NGOs to express themselves in defence of liberties[29].

The associations for the defence of spiritual, educational or therapeutic freedom

An independent association such as the CICNS, which has obtained special consultative status with the UN, has set itself to listen to these different actors in an attempt to rebalance the debate on the place of movements with a spiritual, educational or therapeutic vocation in France. Such an associative structure is not spared attacks and accusations of “collusion with the enemy” on the part of the anti-cult protagonists (dialogue with these people is rarely constructive today, since it is maintained in an aggressive or insulting mode, notably on the dedicated blogs); nevertheless, the choice of an approach of knowledge, the choice of dialogue and of conciliation, bears fruit with a certain number of social actors and makes it possible to loosen the grip of received ideas.

4. Current French policy towards alternative movements with a spiritual, educational or therapeutic vocation is not constructive

If the emergence of alternative practices and movements with a spiritual, educational or therapeutic vocation in recent years is often compared to a supermarket, it nevertheless corresponds to a deep movement of society[30] which ought to be accompanied rather than thwarted. This dynamic of the evolution of society must be respected despite the possible critical opinions of one and another, which must be able to be expressed within the framework of an appeased debate.

The policy of fighting dérives sectaires is the only grid of reading used to evaluate alternative spiritual, educational or therapeutic practices. This grid of reading puts the citizens interested in these practices on the index and thus turns French society against a part of itself. The policy followed is therefore not constructive.

The policy of fighting dérives sectaires resolutely turns its back on university research, leaving the place to rumour and amalgam. It does not favour an approach of knowledge. It is not a source of information but of disinformation. The policy followed is therefore not constructive.

The policy of fighting dérives sectaires extracts itself from the secular pact while claiming to remain within it: notably when the MIVILUDES goes beyond the framework of the strict respect of public order; notably when the administrations and local authorities continue to use non-opposable and obsolete parliamentary reports; notably when the anti-cult associations become suppliers of opinions on alternative beliefs and practices for the public authorities, when they do not have the competence for it[31]; etc. This non-respect of the spirit of laïcité ends up emptying of its meaning and perverting a value to which everyone nevertheless refers. The policy followed is therefore not constructive.

The policy of fighting dérives sectaires, despite thirty years of “struggle” with an apparatus covering all the administrations and local authorities, can provide no credible quantified data on the cult danger or on its action to protect the “victims of cults”, and contents itself with qualitative approximations. The policy followed is therefore not constructive.

The French policy of fighting dérives sectaires does not take into account the options chosen by other European countries confronted with the same questions of society and having better results (United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, Spain, etc.). The policy followed is therefore not constructive.

5. An independent Observatory of alternative movements with a spiritual, educational or therapeutic vocation

The interest of an independent Observatory

There are, in summary, three principal causes of the ineffectiveness of the treatment of the question of alternative movements with a spiritual, educational or therapeutic vocation in France:

an absence of political will to treat a question of society in a balanced way;
a lack of pluralism and of competence of the sources of information, which ends in a disinformation;
a lack of independence of the sources of information.

An independent Observatory would be of a nature to compensate for the last two causes; its creation requires the beginning of an evolution of the political will on the question of the “cults”.

It should be noted that an Observatory accords with Recommendation 1412 of 13 April 1999, voted on 22 June 1999 by the Council of Europe, inviting member countries to create or to support, if necessary, national or regional centres of information on groups of a religious, esoteric or spiritual character that are independent of the State.

Mission of the Observatory

This Observatory would be a balanced consultative body (in the sense that it would favour an adversarial approach) which could issue opinions and recommendations to the Government, to Parliament and to the public authorities in order to improve the texts of laws, to preserve public liberties in view of the diversity of the spiritual, educational and therapeutic approaches of the 21st century, while preserving public order.

It would engage an approach of knowledge with regard to the practices and movements studied, which would thus emerge from the shadow into which the grid of reading by “dérives sectaires” has placed them.

This knowledge would allow the State to refine its mission of “control” and of “evaluation” by access to quality information, thus avoiding having to call on competences too isolated in their opinions, or on anti-cult associations too oriented in their positions.

During judicial proceedings, the magistrates would have access to a source of information complementary to the opinion of the designated experts, whose theses ought moreover to be the object of a validation by the scientific communities involved (cf. the very problematic notion of “mental manipulation”).

The information produced by the Observatory would also be accessible to civil society as a whole (public, media, etc.) to answer its questions about the new spiritual, educational or therapeutic approaches.

The Observatory could serve as a precious source of information for bodies of mediation in conflicts between former adherents and alternative movements, before any legal action. This mediation would advantageously replace the premature action of the anti-cult associations.

The Observatory would establish a charter respectful of the diversity of practices and beliefs, to which any alternative spiritual, educational or therapeutic movement could subscribe.

The Observatory would give an account of its action in an annual report, addressed to the President of the Republic, to the Prime Minister and to Parliament, and made public by way of the Internet and any medium wishing to diffuse it.

Organisation of the Observatory

This organisation must translate the necessary independence of the Observatory, its competence and the pluralism of points of view. The need for independence suggests a distance from the governmental sphere, too subject to event-driven or media pressures. The need for competence suggests relying on research institutes recognised for their quality. The need for pluralism suggests as a prerequisite the acceptance of dialogue as the basis of progress and a return to the spirit of laïcité.

By way of indication, an Observatory in France could have as its base: recognised public research institutes. It could also take the form of an independent Authority.

The organisation proposed below as a model, also by way of indication, draws inspiration from that of the INFORM Observatory (Information Network Focus On Religious Movements[32]) in the United Kingdom on the question of alternative religious movements — while taking account of the difference between the French and British contexts. It goes without saying that additional specific competences would be necessary where the PNCAVT (non-conventional practices with a therapeutic aim) or alternative educational practices are concerned.

Board of administration (about 12 people)

This board of administration would set the orientations of the Observatory for the current year and would exercise an activity of control and evaluation of the activity. It would elect the steering committee and would for example be directed by a president and two vice-presidents.

A typical composition would be: 3 ethnologists of the spiritualities and religions of the world; 2 historians/sociologists of religions from the main French schools and universities having a sociology department (EPHE, EHESS, IEP Aix-en-Provence, University of Strasbourg, etc.); 2 jurists and specialists of law familiar with these problematics; 3 personalities recognised for their reflection and their understanding of our society and of consciousness (philosopher, writer…); 2 specialists in the domains of psychology, psychiatry and the new psychotherapies.

Steering committee (3 people)

The steering committee would be in charge of the day-to-day operational running of the Observatory (with, in traditional fashion, a president, a treasurer and a secretary).

Working team (about 5 people)

It is indispensable that the working team rest on qualified salaried members, with a minimum level in the sociology of religions or an expertise useful to the work of producing information. If we take the example of INFORM, 5 people would be necessary.

Consultative committee (about 20 people)

The Consultative committee would make it possible to broaden the panel of experts consulted for the production of the Observatory’s information. It would be constituted of sociologists, ethnologists, jurists, psychologists, social workers and specialists of consciousness, but would also include a certain number of representatives of the spiritual, educational or therapeutic minorities. It would also include associations campaigning for human rights, anti-cult associations (if the principle of a dialogue with the spiritual minorities is accepted), and associations for the defence of spiritual freedom (such as the CICNS).

International network

The international network would be an extension of the panel of experts to the international level for the production of information.

Financing of the Observatory

A hybrid financing, public and private, could be envisaged. A solely private financing would be open to criticism and probably difficult to find. It must be free of any risk of pressure. A public financing would have the advantage of giving credibility to and officialising the work of the Observatory so that it becomes a reference in the matter. That supposes that the State accepts to finance a totally independent body and therefore not to involve itself in the choice of the Board of Administration. The lever at its disposal would be to continue or not the financing of the Observatory in view of the results obtained, according to the modalities defined in a contract binding the State and the Observatory. This contract would guarantee the independence of the Observatory and would ensure its proper functioning, with mutual agreement of the parties to respect its statutes throughout its validity.

By way of illustration, in 2007 the British government financed the INFORM Observatory to the tune of €100,000. That is the principal source of financing, the rest being brought by established churches (a solution scarcely conceivable in France) and a certain number of private bodies.

According to our information, these figures are markedly lower than the current financing by the French State to the MIVILUDES, the UNADFI, the CCMM and FECRIS (European Federation of Centres of Research and Information on Sectarianism).

6. Opening the door

The house of France is a great dwelling with numerous rooms where everyone can in principle find their place. In some of these rooms live the alternative movements with a spiritual, educational or therapeutic vocation. The manager of the house, supported by a few intolerant tenants, would like to evict them and strongly advises against approaching them, spreading rumours about them. Certain other tenants are not slow to imagine the presence of “monsters” in these unvisited rooms. Yet the tenants in question are men and women in every point similar to the others, with their merits and their weaknesses. They have opened their window onto a landscape they would like to share with those who wish it. But the rumours that spread about them and the fear these engender have made a great number of their neighbours mistrustful, and many are afraid to venture into their corridor and demand their exclusion.

This image attempts to express the ridiculousness of a fear that could dissipate if we had the courage to go and meet the other. It is an approach of openness, of knowledge and of observation, which does not practise rejection or prejudgement and prevents the fear of the unknown or of what one does not understand from transforming itself into psychosis.

This document constitutes a draft of proposals presented with the aim of prompting a debate on the creation of an independent Observatory of alternative movements with a spiritual, educational or therapeutic vocation in France. It does not attempt to substitute itself for the protocol of creation of missions by the public authorities, and the CICNS is disposed to withdraw from the process, as the anti-cult organisations should do, as soon as the Observatory is created and gives signs of vitality.

[1] See the description of our documentary (source)

[2] See our videos section (source)

[3] See numerous quotations demonstrating that France still fights the “cults” (source)

[4] See our synthesis on mental manipulation (source)

[5] See one of our press releases on the subject (source)

[6] See Georges Fenech’s hearing before the Senate commission of enquiry (source1, source2)

[7] See the description of the diploma (source)

[8] Interview with Georges Fenech in Libération (source)

[9] See the hearing of Didier Leschi, Head of the Bureau of Religions, 2006 commission of enquiry, “Stolen childhood” (source)

[10] See our documentary “La France antisectes : état des lieux – Plaidoyer pour les libertés fondamentales” (source)

[11] See Professor Patrice Rolland’s analysis of the genesis of the law (source)

[12] See our documentary on this law (source)

[13] The CICNS, for example, was heard.

[14] See our analysis of the instrumentalisation of distress (source)

[15] See the summary of the conviction (source)

[16] See examples of assaults on our site (source)

[17] According to Minister Claude Guéant in his work: “Laïcité et liberté religieuse”.

[18] See the circular of the director of criminal affairs and pardons (source)

[19] See our analysis of the media coverage of the MIVILUDES’s 2009 report (source)

[20] See our analysis of the media coverage of the MIVILUDES’s 2010 report (source)

[21] See our analysis of various television programmes (source)

[22] IPSOS survey (source)

[23] See examples of assaults on our site (source)

[24] See our videos of sociologists, jurists and various social actors (source)

[25] See Susan Palmer: “Les nouveaux hérétiques de France” (source)

[26] See a colloquium organised at the CNRS: “Quelles régulations pour les nouveaux mouvements religieux et les dérives sectaires dans l’Union Européenne ?” (source)

[27] See the principal terms of Asma Jahangir’s report (source)

[28] See the CICNS’s contributions in 2008 and in 2013

[29] See the CICNS’s contributions in 2009 and in 2011

[30] See the book by the sociologist Raphaël Liogier: “Souci de soi, conscience du monde”, Armand Colin

[31] See the hearing of the president of the UNADFI before the “Stolen childhood” commission of enquiry (source)

[32] See a presentation of INFORM (source)