Interview with Philippe Pérollier on the Theme of "Cults"

In this 2006 interview with the CICNS, Philippe Pérollier offers a practitioner’s legal reading of the question: the drift of the case law since the 1970s, the 1996 parliamentary report and what he describes as its list of 176 groups, the mechanics of denunciation and police investigation, and the first application of the About-Picard law. His perspective rests on legal analysis of the judicial record itself, on what the courts have actually decided, and not decided, about the groups placed on the parliamentary list.

CICNS interview. (English translation of the interview published on the CICNS YouTube channel on 10 November 2006. The French transcript was machine-transcribed from the video and cleaned before translation; passages the machine could not reliably hear are marked [inaudible].)

[Interviewer]: Maître Philippe Pérollier is a lawyer at the Marseille bar. He has taken a close interest in the judicial consequences of the campaigns against dérives sectaires and agreed to answer our questions on certain key aspects of the conditions in which new expressions of spirituality exist today. Here are some excerpts from his answers, presented by theme.

[Interviewer]: The accusation of being a cult.

[Pérollier]: When someone is publicly accused of being a cult, with the meaning that term has taken on today, this systematic use of the word, in my view, constitutes a fault and creates a harm. But the courts today do not recognize it and do not admit it. Even if, in law, there is no defamation, there is at least fault. There is at least an attack on reputation, an attack on honour, a denigration of the people sullied by this term.

[Interviewer]: Case law.

[Pérollier]: After those first rulings of the 1970s, there is a stupefying and, in my opinion, incredible decision that comes in 1981. The Cour de cassation upholds the ruling of a court of appeal. It concerns a petition for divorce. The court of appeal had said… It says that, under the sway of her religious convictions, the wife, a member of a cult, imposed a strange diet on those around her and on her son in particular, and was not raising him according to the principles of the family’s religion. That is all. There is no question of behaviour that could be called dangerous, or at any rate faulty in the context of a divorce.

Afterwards, the case law evolved somewhat. And over the years, indeed, it began to be said that it was not enough to cite membership of a cult, in quotation marks (those quotation marks are mine, and I will explain why) but that other elements were needed, as I was telling you. When you look at the Légifrance website, you can very easily see that there is an explosion of litigation decisions from the years 93–94 onwards. From 1996, from the delivery of the report to the parliamentary commission of inquiry, things accelerate very sharply. And there is now a permanent use of the word, and now in a systematically pejorative sense.

[Interviewer]: The 1996 parliamentary inquiry report on cults.

[Pérollier]: The parliamentary reports played an enormous role in this judicial acceleration and in the media coverage of the question of the phenomenon, as they say, the cult phenomenon. Can one speak of legitimacy when only 30 people took part in that commission of inquiry? And when, moreover, according to the information we have been able to obtain, out of the 30, only 7 or 8 genuinely took part in the vote and adopted the report? I believe the question remains wide open. How can one speak of legitimacy when, for example (and this comes from public authority) no sociologist of religions, no researcher, was heard by the commission of inquiry?

I believe the problem lies (everyone has clearly perceived it that way, I think) in the drawing up of lists. That is where the central problem is. That one should try to define the notion, and try to say why certain behaviours can be dangerous, seems to me to pose no problem at all. Once again, it is the accusation by name, and in 1996 we are talking about 176 groups, which is very significant, the accusation by name of groups, which are thus publicly accused of resorting to reprehensible practices and methods, to use a very vague word, but ones that necessarily amount to criminal offences, or at least to civil fault, that seems to me very serious. This way of proceeding, under cover of parliamentary immunity, is scandalous and ends up stripping such an approach of all legitimacy.

[Interviewer]: The Order of the Solar Temple affair, or OTS.

[Pérollier]: A little like September 11 for Mr Bush: what happened in 1995, with the OTS deaths, was a blessing for the parliamentary commission of inquiry and for the anti-cult hunters. I do not mean at all that those deaths were the product of some kind of plot (I have no idea) but what I do know is that those deaths served the parliamentary commission of inquiry admirably. It seized on them and, in a way, justified itself by that means. That seems to me extremely important.

[Interviewer]: Denunciation, police investigation, the responsibility of the courts.

[Pérollier]: In almost every case, it is a problem of denunciation, originating either with private parties (victims or alleged victims) or with certain associations that have made it their duty to practise this denunciation, or with the police. The Cour de cassation, the courts, the courts of appeal endorse and legitimize all the work that has been done for years on the problem of cults. And as a result, that creates a general climate that encourages denunciations by private parties and, in some cases, the role of the police. And that role of endorsement, of legitimation, is fundamental.

The gendarmerie and the police have, under the code of criminal procedure, autonomous powers of investigation. When a general climate takes hold in society, a climate of suspicion towards groups with different ways of life, then yes, the police can spontaneously take the initiative to investigate.

[Interviewer]: The Arnaud Mussy case. First application of Law 2001-504 of 12 June 2001, intended to strengthen the prevention and repression of cult movements that infringe human rights and fundamental freedoms, known as the About-Picard law.

[Pérollier]: The law can lend itself to variable-geometry applications that make it possible to convict anything and everything. That said, that is the law. That is to say, magistrates always have a power of interpretation and of application to the facts. Once again, as regards this first conviction, I know nothing of the case file, so I cannot speak about it. Nevertheless, it seems to me there is in this affair at least one thing that is extremely worrying: the intervention of a court expert, Doctor Abgrall, who has long been a recognized specialist of the anti-cult hunt, and who is therefore manifestly both judge and party. So if, in this affair, we had only one judicial expert assessment, and it comes from this Doctor Abgrall, there is necessarily a prejudgment, or at any rate something that got off to a very bad start from the outset.

In 1996, then, there was a list of 176 groups described at the time as dangerous cults. I believe there is a question that seems to me essential: that of the judicial decisions that may have been handed down since 1996. It will soon be 10 years now. If those 176 groups really were all very dangerous, as the report said, those groups would certainly have been the object of multiple convictions since that time. I do not have all the data, but one thing seems certain to me: if the 176 groups had been massively convicted, whether civilly or criminally, I am certain that it would have been one of the first arguments, if not THE first argument (that those 176 groups had been convicted) used by all the anti-cult associations and all the people who fight against cults as they understand them. That is not the case. It has never been the case. So we can deduce (and for me there is no doubt about it) that the immense majority of those 176 groups have never been convicted, either civilly or criminally. For me, there is no doubt about it.

All told, in any case, from the 1996 report onwards, there are 176 groups listed, there are 176 victims. That seems obvious to me. And when we say 176 victims, it is 176 multiplied by the number of people concerned, which comes to an enormous number. Even if some groups have indeed been convicted and do engage in certain reprehensible behaviours, that does not justify, even against them, this list procedure, even against them. So I would say that even for them, in any case, they are victims of a procedure that is unacceptable, a procedure of media lynching.

I spoke to you about a decision of the Cour de cassation in 1981, which was already extremely worrying, but everything that has been happening, and which has accelerated very sharply since 1996, has done considerable damage. I cannot give you a list (it is not possible) of the people who have been victims, and it is certain that it is extremely significant. There are people who are afraid now. There are people who are afraid, quite simply, to state their ideas, their convictions, who no longer dare raise certain questions within their family, with their work colleagues. That is something that really exists.

There are also angles of attack that come up very often, notably compulsory vaccination or compulsory schooling. That is indeed often at the origin of the very classification as a cult. I know from experience — and it could be proven if necessary, there is no doubt about it — I know that for certain groups, the mere fact of having taken the children out of school, without in any way having neglected to give them a very solid and entirely valid education — this must be stressed, because in France, what people and many journalists do not know is that what is compulsory is not school, it is instruction. And those are two completely different things, or at any rate things that can be different. So I know, generally speaking, that certain groups were labelled cults precisely because they refused, out of conviction. In any case they refused to send their children to school, while giving them a perfectly valid education, and while also fully respecting the obligations that rested on parents at the time.

[Interviewer]: The attitude of the State, and conclusion.

[Pérollier]: The State does not recognize the existence of a problem in the amalgam that is being made and in the witch-hunt that is being conducted. I believe that is where the central problem lies. The current situation is very worrying. And the collusion (I believe these words must be weighed) the absolutely scandalous collusion between China and France on this problem is particularly worrying. It is unheard of that France, almost officially (it is through official bodies) should have collaborated on this front with the Beijing regime, which not only is what it is in the matter of human rights, but uses torture, assassinations and systematic repression against a group indeed labelled a cult in China.

This accusation and this term “cult” must not be accepted. I believe it must not be accepted. It could go very far, and we do not quite know where exactly, for one thing. And then, I believe it is also, after all, a question of dignity. Of dignity and of standing up for the value of what one is or what one does. It also falls to all the people who are the object of these rumours, of these accusations, to help make things change. I believe that in the past there have been movements of this kind, where minorities were beginning to be completely crushed, with no possibility of reacting, and where the trend was able to right itself. For my part, I think there are things to be done on the judicial front, but it is very difficult. Quite honestly, it is very difficult, because magistrates, like police officers, like everyone else, are steeped in a general climate that is not favourable to minorities at the moment. That is the least one can say.