From the MILS to the MIVILUDES: French Cult Policy after the Socialist Government

From the Mils to the Miviludes.

The Policy towards the Cults in France after the Fall of the Socialist Government

Régis Dericquebourg

Group for the sociology of Religions and laïcité, Université Charles De Gaulle-Lille 3

(speech delivered at the Cesnur conference in Vilnius in April 2003)

On 21 April 2002, the French elected Jacques Chirac, representing the moderate right, to the presidency of the Republic for a second time, with the surprise we know: the head of the Front National came second, ahead of the socialist candidate Lionel Jospin, who had occupied the post of Prime Minister until his candidacy for the presidential election.

At the legislative elections which followed the presidential election, the French sent a united majority of the moderate republican right to the chamber of deputies, thus allowing Jacques Chirac to govern as he saw fit. He named Jean-Pierre Raffarin Prime Minister. The latter formed his government.

The outgoing coalition, comprising the socialists, the greens, the communist party and its affiliates, was known for its opposition to the cults and to the groups assimilated to them. The attempts at elimination, denied or not, of every form of non-conformist religiosity were criticised by international human-rights bodies, associations defending religious liberties, as well as foreign researchers and politicians. So the circles interested in the acceptance of minority religious groups in France, and certain groups themselves, awaited the first measures the French government would take with regard to the cults.

The overall situation in France

In France, the management of the religious rests on the regime of the separation of State and Churches, founded in law by the law of 1905. This translates onto the legal plane a philosophical conception of the links between the State and society called laïcité, a word impossible to translate into other languages. It expresses on the legal plane the social process by which religion little by little loses its influence on the individual and society, which has been called secularisation. According to the 1905 law, the Republic neither recognises nor subsidises any religion; it does not interfere in the internal affairs of the religions. With regard to the religions, it is concerned only with public order. For commentators on the law such as Professor Jacques Robert, this law does not authorise the Republic to establish a distinction between the established Churches and the cults. On the contrary, it opens the way to religious pluralism, since there can no longer exist official religions, or at least religions privileged by the State; this pluralism had been inaugurated by the Napoleonic Concordat in 1802, since it established the regime of recognised religions, limited at the time to Catholicism, Protestantism and, in 1808, Judaism. With the Concordat, the Catholic Church ceased to be the religion of France. A pluralism of the great confessions was established; the 1905 law made it possible to go further in pluralism. However, if the minority religious groups can, in principle, practise and develop freely, they do not necessarily obtain the full recognition as a worship association which allows them, like the established Churches, to receive gifts and inheritances, to visit prisoners and soldiers, to be exempted from certain taxes. This full recognition is granted by the Bureau of Religions of the Ministry of the Interior after a study of the file and at the request of the religious movement. No cult benefits from full recognition. In fact most of them have not asked for it. In France, the resources mobilised for the fight against the cults are disproportionate to the size of religious non-conformism. Indeed, the phenomenon of religious minorities is numerically small. The principal movements are: the Jehovah’s Witnesses (130,000 faithful + 70,000 sympathisers), the Adventists, the Evangelicals (Assemblies of God, Porte ouverte chrétienne, Gypsy Evangelicals), the Mormons (31,000 faithful), the Scientologists (4,000), the Soka Gakkai. Many groups stand at around 1,000 faithful (Antoinists, Christian Science, the Raelians, Aumism, Hare Krishna); The Family (ex-Children of God) has disappeared. Only 400 Moonists remain. Finally, there exist multiple, sometimes ephemeral circles of New Age followers. The total number of their faithful cannot exceed 400,000. Among the established Churches, the most important is Catholicism, followed by Islam, Protestantism and Judaism.

Does one observe an evolution of the policy towards minority religious groups in France?

In France the management of the religious falls in principle to the Bureau of Religions of the Ministry of the Interior. It has a legal function and it takes charge of processing requests for recognition. It is also the police of religions. However, under pressure from the anti-cult associations, the parliamentarians turned their attention to the phenomenon of the cults. A first report drawn up under the direction of M. Alain Vivien (socialist party) was submitted in 1983. A second report entrusted to Jacques Guyard (socialist party), entitled: Les sectes en France, was delivered to the government on 22 December 1995. It is useless to return to the methodology of this inquiry. It has been sufficiently criticised and discredited by numerous foreign and French researchers 1. However, the alarming conclusions it reached prompted the Prime Minister of the right returned to government, M. Juppé, to create an observatory of the cults placed under the direction of M. Guerrier de Dumast in 1996. Back in power, the socialist government created, in 1998, beside the central Bureau of Religions (but without official link to it) a body charged with fighting the cults, placed under the direction of the Prime Minister, called: Interministerial mission for the fight against the cults, whose head was Alain Vivien, a former leader of an anti-cult movement: the Centre against mental manipulations, founded by the rationalist writer Roger Ikor. The powers of this mission were badly defined. In principle, it coordinates the fight against the cults, which means that the Prime Minister of the time, Lionel Jospin, was making a combat against the cults official. This mission was composed of forty people. It maintained close links with the anti-cult groups, of which it was the official relay. It had an advisory role with the ministries in establishing a mesh of agents charged with countering the cults by way of anti-cult cells in the administrations of national education, youth and sport, and social affairs. On 10 June 1999, deputy Jean-Pierre Brard delivered a report entitled: “Les sectes et l’argent”, the fruit of the work of a commission of inquiry into the finances of minority religious groups.

The interministerial mission for the fight against the cults favoured the drafting of the About-Picard law (12 June 2001), which was judged severely by jurists and academics both in France and abroad, as witness this formula of the specialist in law Patrice Rolland: “In total, the law of 12 June 2001 is only a mediocre law which passively reflects the perplexities of French public opinion with regard to what are called the cults. Failing to understand its object and the meaning of these transformations of the religious, it risks either infringing fundamental liberty, or perhaps, because of the risk, remaining a dead letter. That is probably the best one can hope for.” 2 On 18 June 2003, after the fall of the socialist government, Alain Vivien resigned from the Mils and it was dissolved.

Confronted with the inheritance of the socialists’ management of the cults, the government of the moderate right found itself facing several choices: do nothing and entrust the management of minority religious groups to the Bureau of Religions of the Ministry of the Interior, revive the observatory of the cults created by M. Alain Juppé, or create a new commission. The new Prime Minister adopted this last possibility. He had the choice between placing it under the direction of the Minister of the Interior, in charge of religions, or keeping it under the responsibility of the Prime Minister. He adopted the latter solution. By a decree of 28 November 2002, he instituted “An interministerial mission of vigilance and combat against dérives sectaires”.

In its object, the Miviludes has a role as observatory “of the phenomenon of movements of a cult character whose doings infringe human rights and fundamental liberties or are a menace to public order or are contrary to the laws and regulations”, of favouring the prevention and repression of these doings; of gathering information on these movements, of informing the public on the risks of dérives sectaires.

A president was named, M. Jean-Louis Langlais, a senior official of the Ministry of the Interior. The Miviludes is endowed with a committee (President and secretary of an executive steering committee which comprises members of the various ministries (project officers and sub-directors)) as well as an orientation council composed of diverse figures chosen by reason of their competence. The orientation council comprises three categories of members: the parliamentarians (8), the associations (8), the qualified figures (14). The mission is named for three years.

The Miviludes has given itself a first programme of action. However, a few reflections can be made about it.

1. The Miviludes concerns dérives sectaires and not the cults. M. Langlais asserts that the change of name marks the will to reassure the cults, which feared for religious liberty. The intention deserves to be noted. But very quickly, the Miviludes will be confronted with a sizeable problem: how to define “dérives sectaires”. If the sociologists can define the sect-like traits which constitute the elements of the ideal-type of the sect, if they observe that there are sect-like traits in the Churches and Church-like traits in the sects, how will the jurists treat this expression? French law knows nothing of the notion of “cult”; can it then know the “dérive sectaire” and give it a legal definition? As one sees, the problem is postponed but not resolved, and the commission risks debating the sex of angels. On the other hand, if the religious reference disappears, some will ask that “dérives sectaires” be attended to in all movements, including in the political parties. In an interview granted to Willy Fautré, President of Human Rights without Frontiers, International, M. Langlais shows he is conscious of this problem, and he asserts that he is aiming rather at groups which have delinquent behaviour or which place the “victims” in a state of subjection and hold. But how to prove these things in court? M. Langlais himself recognises the difficulty.

2. Does the composition of the Miviludes really differ from that of the Mils? It includes people already present in the latter. To them are added people known for their reservations or quite simply for their hostility towards the cults. The figures who were in charge of the question of the cults in the various ministries enter the steering committee. The parliamentarians named to the orientation council have distinguished themselves by negative public interventions towards the cults. One finds there notably: Jean-Pierre Brard, Alain Gest and Nicolas About, who is one of the authors of the About-Picard law. The anti-cult associations are represented alongside parents’ associations which have manifested their hostility towards minority religious groups. One finds among the qualified figures several people close to the Association for the Defence of the Family and the Individual, which strongly opposes the cults, as well as people close to the Centre against mental manipulations. In his interview with Willy Fautré (3 March 2003), M. Langlais justifies their presence by asserting “that there will be no sectarian attitude towards these movements”. Judging by its composition, the Miviludes ought to have a negative prejudice towards the cults. However, it is fitting to avoid trials of intention. The same people can take up the problem differently according to the programme they are given and the method of work they adopt. But, for their part, the minority religious groups may fear the return of the old reflexes.

3. The declarations of intention. In the press, the President of the Miviludes at once announced that the new mission would apply itself to the protection of minors and that it would have a vigilance no lower than that of the Mils (La Croix, 14/01/02), Vingt minutes (same date), Libération (same date). In an interview granted to the magazine La Vie (No. 2996, 30 January 2003), the President of the Miviludes asserts that the change of the mission’s name means that the objectives have changed: it is not a matter of fighting against the groups themselves but against the excesses to which they might let themselves go. He announces two projects: the protection of minors and aid to victims. The commentator of La Vie finds in this a new orientation: it is no longer a matter of repressing but of helping. The president of the Miviludes is presented as a man who is not part of the “anti-cult inner circle”. On the other hand, M. Langlais asserts that the Miviludes will continue to sensitise heads of educational establishments and magistrates, and that trainers will be trained within national education.

On 4 April 2003, we were informed by the Figaro of another position. At the first meeting of the orientation council of the Miviludes, Monsieur Pierre Steinmetz, director of the Prime Minister’s cabinet, is said to have asserted: “the Prime Minister wished that the task undertaken for years under the impulse of several parliamentarians (…) be pursued and if possible developed”. He added that the public authorities must not content themselves with sanctioning infringements of liberties, but also identify and denounce the behaviours which, upstream of the violation of a liberty, menace its exercise”. For the journalist reporting these facts, “this risks setting on edge the teeth of the leaders of the great confessions and of the sociologists of the religious fact, who consider the fight against the cults an infringement of the freedom to believe”. But, subsequently, having had in hand the whole of Pierre Steinmetz’s address, we found it fairly nuanced. On the other hand, in November 2002, the Prime Minister is said to have asserted that “the State’s vocation is not to fight against the cults”, and the Minister of the Interior is said to have asserted for his part that “the problem of the cults must not become an obsession”. One may conclude from these various positions that, with the phenomenon of religious non-conformists, the government is confronted with a delicate exercise.

4. The decree instituting the Miviludes was contested in court by the Church of Scientology.

The reactions of a few persons concerned

We tried to take soundings among persons concerned with religious liberties. The website of “LibertéSpirituelle” reproduced an article: the limits of public-relations actions, rather pessimistic on the relations between religious groups and the media, to launch a debate. A correspondent (signing: Capfrance 1) answers that this text reflects the climate that reigned at the end of the years 2000-2001, but that the situation has changed: “Throughout this year, the media stopped stupidly copying out the press kits slipped to them by the ADFI, the CCMM and the Mils, and began to publish the for and the against, almost systematically. One notes in the editorial offices a certain weariness with anti-cult extremism. The journalists no longer believe in it, even if they are strongly urged to blacken the picture. Some even admit in private that they manage to get other points of view through when the editor-in-chief is no longer there (authentic!)”. He adds, as proof of an evolution, that the Miviludes “is taking a rather different direction” (from that of the Mils). The author of this message adds also that he possesses detailed testimonies on the change (unless I am mistaken, the signatory speaks in the name of an association engaged in the fight for religious liberty). A religious group sent me, as proof of a will to transparency, letters and circulars concerning it, provided at its request by the administrations.

On the other hand, we carried out a small survey among 15 spokespersons of minority religious groups present in France concerning a possible change of policy of the moderate-right government towards minority religious groups. It is in fact rather a record of a few positions established from a brief questionnaire which these persons kindly answered by telephone or on the occasion of a meeting. This inquiry is being pursued to reach a more representative sample. As it stands, it must be considered provisional.

In a first survey of 15 minority religious groups present in France (Mormons, Raelians, Hare Krishna, Horus, Antakharana, Golden Rosycross, Mandarom, Evangelical Church of Besançon, Christian Science, Invitation à la Vie, Scientology, Reiki, Unification Church, Soka Gakkai, Alliance), a clear majority of movements (11/15) expected a change of policy with regard to the cults. To the question, “if yes, why?”, we had asked them to choose at most two of the following motives: 1) because the right has no anti-cult ideology, 2) because the right is more tolerant than the left, 3) because the right has no antireligious ideology, 4) because the right will attend to more important questions, 5) because the right will want to distinguish itself from the left, 6) because the right is less linked to the antireligious Masonic obediences. The choices fall on all the motives, with a major equal distribution over the last three (5,4,4). Those who answered no justify their answers by the fact that mentalities are impregnated with anti-cultism and because the right will want to satisfy public opinion or the voters. We then asked the spokespersons of these groups whether they had observed a change of attitude of the “government” towards their own movement; no tendency emerges: 6 yes and 6 no and 3 “Don’t know”. The affirmative answer is motivated principally by better contacts with the administrations (our letters are answered, a few decisions have been favourable). Certain DKs are accompanied by “yes in general”. One supposes that they have no troubles or that they have not attempted approaches on behalf of their movement. One negative answer is justified by the attitude of the tax services, which remains the same. When we question the movements on a change in the discourse on the cults in the media, we obtain: 6 yes against 9 no. Some note silence, a timid opening. Another says that “the thing has deflated”.

Thirteen groups against two have heard of the Miviludes; 6/13 know its organisation but few know the first appointments (3/12 and one non-answer). To the open question: what do you think of the Miviludes, the answers are negative, such as these: “everything is erased and we start again”, “I wonder about the list of decision-makers”, “the orientation council is a gathering of the most extremist anti-cultists in existence in France”, “the anti-cult lobby acted, Raffarin continued it”. Only one salutes the appointment of a senior official at its head and finds in the Miviludes a “narrowing of influence compared with the Mils”. Another limits himself to citing its aim: “to protect the children but not attack the groups”. When one asks whether the new majority will be more tolerant towards the cults than the left, less tolerant or the same, opinions are equally divided between “more tolerant and the same” (7-5-1 dk, 2 “other”). On the other hand, 4 choices fall on the proposition “the Miviludes will be a copy of the Mils”, 7 choices on “the Miviludes will be more liberal than the Mils”, 1 choice on “the Miviludes will be harder than the Mils” and 11 choices on the proposition “it is maintained to satisfy a certain public”. This last proposition is adopted both by those who think the Miviludes will be the copy of the Mils and by those who think the Miviludes will be more liberal. That is due to the ambiguity of the questions. One may think that the government maintained a commission to satisfy the public - those who have a negative prejudice towards the cults - but that it will attempt to be more open; others may think it will be the status quo (the same intransigence as the Mils in order to satisfy the anti-cult public).4 Finally, I proposed six expectations towards the government concerning minority religious groups:

the repeal of the About-Picard law wins (8), level with “the guarantee of religious pluralism”, level with “the creation of a representation of minority religious groups in France” (5), the recognition of all minority religious movements as worship associations (4), a selection of the dangerous cults and the others (2), and the creation of a commission to discuss their problems with the government (3) 5.

Conclusion

After the fall of the left majority, the minority religious groups expected a change of attitude from the moderate right towards them. Overall, they supposed there would be an opening. The creation of a new mission on the cults, or at least on dérives sectaires, surprised them, and its composition irritated them. They nevertheless continue overall to grant the right a credit of confidence, though some have already given up expecting anything positive. The repeal of the About-Picard law and the guarantee of religious pluralism would doubtless symbolise a change in their eyes. In asides, the minority religious groups confide that they nevertheless remain vigilant and always ready to continue the fight against the conduct they consider menacing towards them. It seems there is vigilance on both sides.

Régis Dericquebourg (see Books page):

Born in 1947, a psycho-sociologist, Maître de conférence at the University of Lille, he studies minority religious groups, and in particular those with a healing vocation. His doctoral thesis was on the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Religions de guérison, Paris, Cerf, 1988.

Les antoinistes, Turnhout, Brépols, 1993.

Croire et Guérir, Paris, Dervy, 2002. Boycotted by certain booksellers under pressure from the anti-cult movements.

See also our interview with M. Dericquebourg

Read also www.cicns-news.net/la-loi-17.htm

1 Cf. Massimo Introvigne, Pour en finir avec les sectes, Paris, éd. Dervy, 1996. Françoise Champion and Martine Cohen, eds.: Sectes et démocratie, Paris, Seuil, 1999.

2 Patrice Rolland: “La loi du 12 juin 2001 contre les mouvements sectaires portant atteinte aux Droits de l’homme; Anatomie d’un débat législatif”. Archives de Sciences sociales des religions, 2003, 121, January-March, pp. 149-166.

3 There are more group choices because I allowed a maximum of two choices.

4 Idem.

5 Idem.