To Win a Case, the Magic Word: Cult
Grenoble lawyer Jean-Pierre Joseph on how the word cult functions in French courtrooms: an accusation that needs no proof, that no judge goes to verify, and that turns ordinary choices into offences.
CICNS
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Anti-Cultism Is a Decoy
Guy Delaunay's long essay arguing that anti-cultism does not fight the cults but constructs the cult object, from Coupat's account of antiterrorism to the 2006 commission's 80,000-children figure that its own civil servants refuted on camera.
A Textbook Case: Jean-Luc Delarue's "Ça se discute"
Éric Bouzou dissects the 19 September 2007 France 2 programme on cults and gurus as three manipulations in one show: the pretence of treating a social issue, the simulacrum of balance, and a set turned popular tribunal. A 2010 postscript notes the presenter's own fall.
The Witch-Hunt Is Open
Olivier Golinvaux's Québécois Libre essay on the French cult panic: from sequi and secare to Weber and Troeltsch, how the word was secularised into 'dangerousness', why the ten Gest criteria self-destruct, and what the State's hold on the market in beliefs really protects.
Commentary on the 2005 Raffarin Circular on Dérives Sectaires
CICNS annotates the full text of Prime Minister Raffarin's 27 May 2005 circular, reading its abandonment of cult lists as a change of form that leaves the policy's intentions and intensity untouched.
Letters to the Government on the Reappearance of Deprogramming in France
CICNS's December 2009 letters to the Interior and Health ministers over Maître Picotin's Aquitaine exit counseling cell, tying it to the banned deprogramming lineage and asking what legal framework covers it. Unanswered as of April 2011.
The CICNS's Letters to the Media Following the 2008 MIVILUDES Report
Twenty letters sent in May and June 2009 to La Croix, Libération, AFP, France 2 and the rest of the media landscape that relayed the 2008 MIVILUDES report: the same request each time, that journalists carry the opinions they leave out, and a right of reply asked of France 2.
QED, or the "State Spanking"
Claude-Gérard Sarrazin's polemical epistemology lesson: acts of faith beneath scientific knowledge, measuring instruments that cannot measure what they deny, the placebo as unexplained process, and the argument from authority that rules the paranormal inadmissible.
Irrelevant and Arbitrary Criteria for Denouncing Dérives Sectaires
CICNS contrasts the Amour et Miséricorde community, dissolved under media pressure after a Fenech visit, with France 24's respectful coverage of a Buddhist three-year retreat that would tick the same criteria.
State Cynicism or Political Pragmatism Facing the Spiritual Minorities
Émile D'Albret dissects MIVILUDES council anthropologist Nathalie Luca's colloquium paper: a definition of the cult that studies the state's vulnerabilities, a Jonestown retold with five dead, and prevention as politics.
Cult and Democracy
Sociologist Françoise Champion, co-editor of the reference volume Sectes et démocratie, interviewed in Les trois mondes: politicians who privately admit the phenomenon is marginal and publicly forget it, media that no longer know what religion is, and the case-by-case method that would depassion the debate.
A Certain Feeling of Desolation
Daniel Fradette, president of Montreal's CINR, interviewed in Les 3 mondes on the French exception seen from Quebec: a witch-hunt conducted in the name of rationality, a repressed religion-State dispute resurfacing, and the mediation experience Quebec could lend.
On the Refusal of Difference: Nostalgia for the Inquisition and Vichy?
Claude-Gérard Sarrazin sets his own Quebec experiences, from the Mensa school project to the charismatic group that made him a 'sorcerer', against a history of the refusal of difference: Inquisition, Terror, Vichy, Hitler, Stalin, and today's secular fundamentalism.
Eckankar and the St Paul Affair: Interview with Jean Maunick
The press interview in which the head of Eckankar Mauritius answers the accusations after the St Paul tragedy: one former member among the ten dead, medallions that prove nothing, a fifty-member group with a few chairs and books, and teachings that condemn suicide without reserve.
The Interior Ministry's Conflict with the Cults Advice Sheet
CICNS reproduces the ministry's family-security advice sheet, which steers citizens to ADFI and CCMM and explains how to place a relative under guardianship, and annotates it as a state instruction manual for persecution.
Gilles Bottine's 2005 ENM Speech on the Cults
The MIVILUDES secretary general tells trainee magistrates the word 'cult' is stigmatising, that membership of a minority of conviction is no dérive sectaire, and that most of Europe handles the matter with ordinary law.
Interview with Janine Tavernier (1)
The outgoing UNADFI president tells Technikart in 2001 that people now see cults everywhere, that the Steiner schools her grandchildren attend are wrongly catalogued, and that she is leaving as more dogmatic voices arrive.
"They Did Not Save My Life", a Scandalous Anti-Cult Docu-Fiction
CICNS reads the 2009 book in which a TF1 news executive writes in the first person as a deceased woman, against the 80-page record of the appeal trial that acquitted the doctor the book targets, and against the journalists' charter its author signed.
Forced Psychiatric Commitments
Valérie Dole's sourced inquiry into forced psychiatric commitment in France: 52,000 forced hospitalisations in 2000, the I3P infirmary operating outside the law, and the ministry advice that ties guardianship to the cult accusation.
Laïcité, Cults: Is There an Alternative to the Foot-in-the-Dish Politics?
Éric Bouzou surveys the storm around Sarkozy's Latran and Riyadh speeches and the Mignon 'non-problem' episode, from Baubérot and Debray to the Protestant federation, and asks why France cannot debate laïcité calmly.
LCP Channel - "Beware of the Gurus"
CICNS's running commentary on the parliamentary channel's October 2011 report marking ten years of the About-Picard law: Waco and Solar Temple images out of context, a poll figure misattributed to Ipsos, an ongoing trial prejudged, and 'mental manipulation' presented as technical science.
Cults, Media and Single-Track Thinking
Éric Bouzou's enquiry into the France 2 hidden-camera programme Les infiltrés: why CICNS declined the panel, the three-to-one ratio of anti-cult voices, and what Chomsky, Bourdieu and the profession's own critics say about a journalism that cries wolf.
Media and Spirituality: The Journalism of Denunciation
Jean-Luc Delfin's essay from the magazine Les trois mondes: why nothing is more opposed to the tempo of the media than a spiritual path, how cult coverage recycles anti-cult files without verification, and what Zola knew about buried truth.
The Impossible Tolerance? The Mariani Thesis on French Cult Policy
CICNS reviews Lionel Mariani's IEP thesis on French political responses to the cult question, saluting its balance while contesting its acceptance of the intrinsic-dangerousness frame and its refusal of the word 'hardening'.
Local Authorities Facing Dérives Sectaires: the New MIVILUDES Guide
Éric Bouzou reads the MIVILUDES guide for local authorities as a paranoid manual that treats the 'cult movement' as an omnipresent enemy and legal protections as pitfalls, quoting the guide against itself.
The Unification Church of Sun Myong Moon
Laurent Ladouce's history of thirty years of his movement in France, introduced by CICNS: how Ouest-France coined 'la secte Moon' in 1975, how Boyer's 'Empire Moon' replaced it under Mitterrand, and how brainwashing, deprogramming and State harassment mirrored the thing they denounced.
The Media Treatment of the "Cults"
Anne Morelli, historian of religions at the ULB, recounts from the inside how a France 2 'debate' on cults was built: names banned, invited witnesses barred at the MIVILUDES's request, a guest walked off the set, and her own microphone switched off.
MIVILUDES Descent on the Moulin des Vallées
CICNS documents the October 2009 MIVILUDES visit to an ecumenical monastery in Ille-et-Vilaine, reproducing the residents' letter to their prefect describing an intrusion conducted with journalists in tow.
The New Age as Seen by the Written Press in Quebec
CICNS's reading digest of Eric Forgues's essay: page by page, how Quebec's French-language press covered the new age from outside, as catch-all, plague and infiltration, and what that says about an elite estranged from a quarter of its readership.
Compulsory Schooling: Chronology of the Death of the Freedom of Instruction
Valérie Dole documents the 1998 law that made home education 'exceptional' in France: the parliamentary session verbatim, the annual inspections and mayoral inquiries it created, and the cult panic that carried it unanimously.
Parenthood, Convictions and Children's Rights in the MIVILUDES 2009 Report
CICNS reads the report's custody case-law study against its missing context: judges writing 'cult' into their reasoning, divorce accusations as windfall, and the 80,000-children figure quietly absent from the mission's own pages.
"Plus belle la vie"?
When France's most-watched soap ran a ten-week cult storyline in 2008, CICNS traced the plot beat by beat: every anti-cult archetype rendered as realism, down to a judge doing something no French judge can legally do.
The Current Policy of the MIVILUDES Is Condemned to Fail
CICNS's 2009 assessment turns Roulet's own exit balance sheet against the mission: no credible victim inquiry ever done, discriminations institutionalised, the secular pact breached by doctrine evaluation, and a groundswell misread.
The Question of the Cults: Institutional Deregulation or French Singularity?
Baubérot and Milot's ASSR 2002 discussion of Hervieu-Léger's book: the cult fight as public-hygiene campaign, the allergy to pluralism behind French regulation, and the Canadian counter-model where ordinary law suffices.
Elections 2007: The CICNS Test Bench
CICNS scores the 2007 second-round candidates on spiritual liberty: Sarkozy's book against his muscular formulas, Royal's 1999 anti-cult school plan and her ADFI-lawyer spokesman. Neither answered the questionnaire.
Hide That Religion I Do Not Wish to See
Alain Bouchard, sociologist of religion at Université Laval, on the 'religiously correct': the implicit norm that religion be private, rational and undemonstrative, and how the mediatised church and the mediatised cult are its two mirror images in Quebec.
Anti-Cult Law: The Poisoned Remedy for an Imaginary Ill
Raphaël Verrier's lmsi.net essay dismantles the ten Renseignements Généraux criteria behind the Guyard list one by one, asks why Opus Dei escaped it, and reads the About-Picard bill as a menace to the associative world itself.
The Renseignements Généraux (1)
Part one of the CICNS dossier on France's political police: the 1995 order article by article with plain-language glosses, the three files, the wiretap cards marked Secret Source, and how informers are recruited and paid.
The Renseignements Généraux (2)
Part two of the CICNS dossier on France's political police: the daily minister's dossier, the unheaded white notes, the Salamandre election simulator, the covert OCSS polling office, and the cult database that became a reference.
The Renseignements Généraux (3): RG, the Scandal Machine
Extracts from former RG officer Patrick Rougelet's book: the unprovable white notes, 53,000 occult journalist files, the rushed 1995 cult report copied from the gendarmes, and why he concludes the service cannot be reformed.
Sarkozy on Religions, Cults and Hope: Extracts from La République, les religions, l'espérance
CICNS's page-cited extracts from the sitting minister's 2004 book: no wave of dérives sectaires, a witch-hunt gone too far at times, ordinary criminal law as the test, and a positive laïcité as the liberty to hope.
France Fights Minority Groups, Not Dérives Sectaires: a Demonstration in Quotations
CICNS assembles the record in the actors' own words: Fenech affirming and denying the fight against cults in the same fortnight, ministers promising a pitiless hunt, and journalists dropping the official euphemism entirely.
The Uncertain Fruits of a Historical Journey through France after 1789
Historian Paul Airiau's paper from the MIVILUDES 'Sectes et laïcité' seminar: a BnF catalogue chronology of the cult question, the associations and laws that built it, and laïcité arriving late, partly as an answer to America.
André Delelis on Lending the Stade Bollaert to the Jehovah's Witnesses
Régis Dericquebourg's 1998 interview with the socialist mayor of Lens: an atheist's case for lending the municipal stadium to a minority the ADFI wanted banned, resting on Guy Mollet and the plain rule of law.
Landmark Education - Right of Reply - France 3
Landmark Education's reply to the May 2004 Pièces à Conviction broadcast, as compiled by CICNS: the unnotified listing it could never be struck off, the promises France 3 made and broke, the experts the channel declined to consult, and a viewer's comment from the channel's own forum.
The Tragedy of St Paul
Ten deaths in Mauritius in August 2004, two EK medallions, and within days a whole religious minority under suspicion: Emile d'Albret traces how the French anti-cult template travelled to the Indian Ocean press, and defends nothing but the presumption of innocence.
The Theme of the "Cults" in Broadcast Debates (chapter 1: 2004-2007)
CICNS's running dossier on four years of French cult television: C dans l'air, the Landmark exposé, Karl Zéro, Teva, Jonestown and Waco documentaries, and the full email exchange in which a Ça se discute journalist promised an open debate that never was.
Teachers' Points of View on the Anti-Cult Fight and the Real Dangers for Minors
Two education professionals write to CICNS about the MIVILUDES minors guide: a support-network teacher who finds the targeted families the least worrying third, and a principal who in 33 years found nothing.
From the MILS to the MIVILUDES: French Cult Policy after the Socialist Government
Régis Dericquebourg's CESNUR 2003 Vilnius paper: the 1905 framework, the Vivien and Guyard reports, the About-Picard law, the new mission's contested composition, and what fifteen minority groups expected of the right.
Investigation into the ADFI, Part 2: The Victims of the ADFI
An anonymous dossier republished by the CICNS setting out five cases attributed to France's ADFI/UNADFI anti-cult network, from a 1982 suicide to the 2000 death of Doctor Yves Jullien.
Investigation into the ADFIs, Part 1
A dossier on France's ADFI/UNADFI anti-cult network republished by the CICNS, gathering an ex-member's testimony, book extracts by Paturel, Barrucand and Anne Morelli, and two 1999 newspaper reports.
The Hearings of the 2006 Parliamentary Commission on Cults
CICNS's 28,000-word annotated dossier on the 2006 French parliamentary commission on cults and minors, covering eleven hearings from MIVILUDES president Jean-Michel Roulet to the Machelon report.
Hearing of Serge Blisko, President of the MIVILUDES, before the Senate Commission on Cults and Health
CICNS's twelve-part commentary on Serge Blisko's November 2012 Senate hearing: the MIVILUDES's rhetoric, the About-Picard Act's record of convictions, and the child-victim figures its president could not substantiate.
The CCMM
CICNS profile of the CCMM, the anti-cult association founded in 1981 by Roger Ikor, with quotations from Ikor's own articles and speeches of the 1980s.
The Case of FECRIS
Rudolf Vis's memorandum to the Parliamentary Assembly arguing against consultative status for FECRIS, republished with a CICNS introduction, and taking each of the federation's six stated objectives in turn.
Georges Fenech's Illusionist Act before the Parliamentary Commission on Cults in the Field of Health
CICNS fact-check of Georges Fenech's 30 October 2012 Senate hearing: 13 million claimed victims against the Justice Ministry's own count of 192 reports over three years.
Extracts from the October 2006 Hearing of Didier Leschi
The head of France's central bureau of religious affairs tells the 2006 parliamentary commission on cults and childhood that he has no evidence of public-order disturbance, and warns that stigmatisation may itself become one.
Parliamentary Reports and Their Legal Value
CICNS on the French parliamentary cult reports from Vivien (1983) onwards: official texts deny them normative value, yet courts, administrations and the media use them constantly.
Georges Fenech's 2008 Report "Justice Faced with Dérives Sectaires"
Éric Bouzou's section-by-section commentary on the MIVILUDES president's 2008 report to the Prime Minister, from its opening word "teratology" to its unfounded child-victim figures.
In-Depth Inquiry into an Anti-Cult Commission: The Harms of Façade Rationalism and of Scientism
CICNS on the 2013 Senate commission on cults and health: four months in, not one targeted practitioner had been heard, while officials asserted victim numbers they admitted they could not support.
CICNS Commentary on the Presentation of the Parliamentary Commission Report on Cults and Childhood
CICNS's point-by-point rebuttal of the 19 December 2006 presentation of the French parliamentary report on cults and children, including the Tabitha's Place visit and the 40,000-80,000 figure.
Senate Commission of Inquiry on Cults: the Hearing of Jean-Pierre Jougla
CICNS's timecoded analysis of Jean-Pierre Jougla's 6 November 2012 Senate testimony, counting his disqualifying terms and answering each passage of his argument.
Commentary on Senate Hearings of Practitioners in Non-Conventional Therapies
CICNS commentary on the 2013 French Senate hearings of naturopaths, kinesiologists and energy healers, arguing that practitioners who adopt anti-cult language against each other feed the repression.
Was the Anti-Cult Machination Losing Its Momentum?
The full text of Philippe Vuilque's 2006 resolution creating the parliamentary commission on cults and minors, annotated line by line by the CICNS, with the Assembly debate that adopted it unanimously.
The Guide for the Public Official Facing Dérives Sectaires
CICNS walks through the 2004 MIVILUDES guide for civil servants: criteria of dangerousness with no legal basis, and 192 of 54,000 child-welfare files.
The 2010 Miviludes Guide: A Machiavellian Will to Exclude
CICNS takes apart the 2010 MIVILUDES guide on minors: the unfounded 50,000 child victims, "mental hold" as pseudo-science, and criteria that fit any family.
The Guide for the Mayors of France against Cults
Emile D'Albret reads the 2001 MILS guide for mayors as a manual for using planning, tax and schooling law against spiritual minorities.
The New 2010 MIVILUDES Guide: The Politics of Fear
CICNS reads the 2010 MIVILUDES guide on protecting minors and finds a doctrine that asks officials to detect a dérive sectaire before it exists: risk in place of established harm.
The MIVILUDES Report: Dramatic Hysteria and Incompetence
CICNS on the MIVILUDES 2010 annual report: the "2012" apocalypse threat, resettlement in the countryside as a new cult indicator, and alternative medicine as danger.
Seminar 2003-2004, Cults and Laïcité
CICNS presents extracts from the MIVILUDES university seminar: Danièle Hervieu-Léger on three lines of dérive, and Jean Baubérot on the rhetoric of the Republic under threat.
Commentary on the 2005 MIVILUDES Report
Patrick Le Berre turns the nine "cult mechanisms" back on MIVILUDES itself, counting the 2005 report's conflations, defamations and abuses of dominant position.
The 2005 MIVILUDES Report
André Tarassi on the MIVILUDES 2005 report, which abandoned the pledge not to name groups and became an inventory of spiritual minorities and their "dangers".
The 2004 MIVILUDES Report
André Tarassi on the MIVILUDES 2004 report: professional secrecy urged towards denunciation, the About-Picard law's nil record, and doctrine equated with danger.
The 2006 MIVILUDES Report
Two CICNS commentaries on the MIVILUDES 2006 annual report: André Tarassi on the mission's academic screen, Éric Bouzou on its psychology of "mental hold".
The 2006 MIVILUDES Report: Michel de Courtelle's Analysis
Michel de Courtelle's long reading of the MIVILUDES 2006 report, with the Leschi and Dupuis hearings that put 8 cult-linked cases against 19,000 child reports.
The 2003 MIVILUDES Report
André Tarassi's line-by-line CICNS commentary on the first MIVILUDES annual report, from the "consensus" not to be broken to the criteria of dangerousness.
The 2007 MIVILUDES Report: Denis Mathieu's Reading Report
Denis Mathieu's chapter-by-chapter digest of the 234-page MIVILUDES 2007 report: 41 referrals since 2005, the OSCE chapter, and a tour of central Europe.
The 2007 MIVILUDES Report: Éric Bouzou's Commentary
Éric Bouzou on the MIVILUDES 2007 report: the mission cast as martyr, preterition as method, mental hold as an argument, and the missing figures.
The 2009 MIVILUDES Report
CICNS commentary on the MIVILUDES 2009 annual report: Fenech's claim of "effectiveness", a long study of shamanism, and the mission's attack on judges.
MIVILUDES 2007 Report: Michel de Courtelle's Analysis
Michel de Courtelle measures the MIVILUDES 2007 report against its predecessors and takes apart at length its chapter on "induced false memories".
The 2008 MIVILUDES Report
CICNS on the MIVILUDES 2008 report: figures Fenech gave the press that the report never printed, and the Interior Ministry's circular against lists.
UNADFI Before the Courts
CICNS case file on the 2005 suit before the Paris tribunal de grande instance seeking the dissolution of the anti-cult association UNADFI, with press coverage of the hearings and the judgment.
The Belgian State Condemned for Damaging the Image of the EURD
CICNS case file on the 2005 Brussels appeal ruling that condemned the Belgian State for damaging the image of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in its 1997 parliamentary cult report.
Police Assaults on Spiritual Minorities
CICNS dossier of violent police and gendarmerie raids on spiritual minorities in France from 1989 to 2011 (Longo Maï, The Family, Beljanski, Tabitha's Place, the Mandarom and others), with CICNS's advice to victims.
The Steiner Schools Defamation Trial: Botched Investigations and Prejudice
Martine Lagattier's account in Alternative santé - l'impatient of the February 2000 defamation trial of deputy Jacques Guyard, sued by the Federation of Steiner Schools, the Mercure fédéral and the NEF over the 1999 parliamentary cult report.
Defaming "Cults" in All Good Faith
CICNS legal analysis of the Guyard and Brard rulings, in which French courts found defamation of movements labelled cults proven yet excused it under the good-faith doctrine.
The Suicide of Doctor Jullien
CICNS case file on Dr Yves Jullien, who took his own life in March 2000 after a cult rumor and administrative harassment closed his Epinoïa centre at l'Isle-sur-Serein.
The Case of the "Presumed Guru" Robert Lé Dinh
CICNS's 2012 follow-up on the Robert Lé Dinh appeal trial: UNADFI as civil party, the About-Picard law, psychological subjection, and the media's treatment of the case.
The Lé Dinh Case: Remarkable Defence Pleadings on the Relentless Mechanics of So-Called "Cult" Trials
CICNS commentary on the 2010 assize trial of Robert Lé Dinh, reproducing the defence pleadings of Maîtres Lebonjour and Martial on how the cult postulate shapes French courtrooms.
The l'Essentiel Affair
CICNS case file on the 20 November 2000 raid by sixty armed gendarmes on the small Terranova spiritual community in the Aveyron, and the five years of surveillance, custody and trial that framed it.
Complaint by a Spiritual Minority After an Abusive MIVILUDES Raid
The full text of the 2010 criminal complaint filed by the Moulin des Vallées community against MIVILUDES president Georges Fenech over an unannounced 2009 raid conducted with undisclosed journalists.
The Arnaud Mussy and Néo-Phare Affair: Revocation of Human Rights
A 2005 CICNS member's analysis of the Arnaud Mussy / Néo-Phare appeal verdict, the first application of the About-Picard law, and the role of expert witness Jean-Marie Abgrall.
Are the Banks Taking Part in the Repression?
A 2005 CICNS investigation into French banks jointly refusing accounts to a spiritual association, the legal right to an account, and the role of FATF blacklists, TRACFIN and the DGCCRF.
Cults, Rumours and the Courts: Laurent Hincker's Case Files
CAP-LC's 2003 review of Strasbourg lawyer Laurent Hincker's book on rumour-driven prosecutions of spiritual movements, from the Guyard anthroposophy defamation case to a Hindu movement destroyed by press inventions.
The Gettliffe / Grant Affair
CICNS's dossier on the Gettliffe/Grant custody affair (2001-2009): the annotated Thémis-Phonetag blog debate over Nathalie Gettliffe's removal of her children from Canada, the court rulings on both sides of the Atlantic, and the October 2010 addendum.
The Dr Guéniot Affair
CICNS's case file on Dr Gérard Guéniot: the 2006 Lille conviction, the full 2009 Douai appeal acquittal, and how the media, ADFI/UNADFI and the MIVILUDES treated the 'Grail' cult affair.
The Trial of the Order of the Solar Temple
CICNS's press dossier on the Order of the Solar Temple trial: Michel Tabachnik's 2001 acquittal and 2006 appeal acquittal, the victims' families' fight to reopen the investigation, and the unanswered questions around the 74 deaths.
The Paturel Case and the European Court of Human Rights
Press coverage, the ECHR Registrar's communiqué and Christian Paturel's own testimony on Paturel v France (22 December 2005), in which Strasbourg unanimously found that his French defamation conviction over an anti-cult book violated Article 10.
Jean-Pierre Brard's Run-Ins with the Law
CICNS dossier on deputy Jean-Pierre Brard's legal entanglements: his defamation conviction over the Jehovah's Witnesses upheld in cassation, the Chouraqui and Jasmeen rulings, and his clashes with the Protestant federations.
Court Decisions in Favour of Spiritual Minorities (2007)
Three 2007 French rulings compiled by CICNS: Catherine Picard's defamation conviction over the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Cour de cassation finding Fournier and Picard's book defamatory towards AMORC, and the dismissal of Anne Hidalgo's suit against Christian Cotten.
Jehovah's Witnesses in the French Courts: A Case File
CICNS's compiled case file on the Jehovah's Witnesses in France: the Picard and Brard defamation convictions, the 45-million-euro tax battle, the court-ordered disclosure of the intelligence files behind the 1996 cult list, and local hostility to their places of worship.
The Beatitudes Community Affair
CICNS's chronology of the Beatitudes community affair: the complaints and judicial proceedings, MIVILUDES's cautious handling, and the media's role in building the group's negative image.
Is French Justice Really Independent?
Starting from the 2007 Lisieux 'Parc d'accueil' affair, CICNS asks whether French justice can remain independent of rumor, media pressure and political influence, with extracts from Charles Debbasch and Jean-Louis Nadal.
The Law of 12 June 2001 against Cult Movements Infringing Human Rights
Patrice Rolland's scholarly anatomy of the About-Picard law's legislative debate: a law explicitly directed against cults that never names or defines them, and what that paradox reveals about French fear of the cult phenomenon.
The French Judge Facing 'Cult' Cases
Engineer and CICNS member Éric Bouzou surveys how French courts handle 'cult' cases, drawing on Vincente Fortier's case-law study and testimony from Raphaël Liogier and Laurent Hincker.
Analysis of the Law of 12 June 2001 Concerning "Cults"
Marseille lawyer Philippe Perollier's clause-by-clause commentary on France's 2001 About-Picard law: how the abandoned offence of mental manipulation returned as abuse of weakness, and the power the law's vagueness hands to the judges.
Me, Anne, a Mother: Children Held Hostage by French-Style Anti-Cultism
A mother's first-person account of losing custody of her two daughters after her ex-husband, backed by an anti-cult association, branded her community, the Gens de Bernard, a cult.
The Archives of Maître Paturel, Part 1
CICNS opens the thousand-page archive of Maître Christian Paturel, the lawyer who prevailed over UNADFI at the European Court of Human Rights, starting with the 1993 mass removal of 33 children from 'La Famille'.
The Archives of Maître Paturel, Part 2: The 'Blunders' of the Gest-Guyard Report
From Maître Paturel's archives, CICNS re-examines the 1996 Gest-Guyard parliamentary report on cults: its factual blunders, its unsourced claim of 'numerous illegalities', and the fifteen court cases cited in its support.
The Archives of Maître Paturel, Part 3: Caricatures and Dark Designs
Drawing on file 45 of Maître Paturel's archives and historian Pierre Barrucand's 1996 study, CICNS traces the parallel between pre-war anti-Jewish caricatures and 1990s anti-cult imagery, and dissects the reflex answer 'I am not a cult'.
The Archives of Maître Paturel, Part 4: The Horus Case and the Conscientious Objectors
In this interview extract from his archives, Maître Christian Paturel recounts the gendarmerie operation at the Horus agrarian community and how he came to defend more than three thousand conscientious objectors, most of them Jehovah's Witnesses.
Police Raids, Searches and Garde à Vue: What Are Your Rights?
CICNS's legal guide to police raids, searches and garde à vue custody as experienced by spiritual minorities in France, with statutory rules, time limits and first-hand raid testimony.
A Psychoanalyst in Prison!
Guy Delaunay's 2007 defense dossier on psychoanalyst Claude David, jailed amid cult-manipulation accusations, tracing the Fondation PI's history, the rumor campaigns against it, and the machinery of the French anti-cult fight.
The CICNS Charter
The CICNS's own statement of what it is, why it was formed, and what its members pledge. Republished as provenance for the CICNS material archived on this site.
The CICNS Interviews: A Guide to the Video Archive, 2006 to 2014
A guide to the roughly fifty-six interviews published on the CICNS YouTube channel between 2006 and 2014: scholars, journalists, practitioners and CICNS's own reports, grouped by voice.
17 July 2026
Raphaël Liogier on the French Cult Question: A Guide to the 2013 CICNS Interviews
A guide to the four-part 2013 CICNS interview with sociologist Raphaël Liogier: the struggle inside the French State, why dissent on the cult question costs, why television forbids nuance, and his individuo-globalism thesis.
17 July 2026
Christiane Singer on Spiritual Freedom: The Full CICNS Interview
English translation of the full CICNS interview with writer Christiane Singer (Paris, May 2006): society as socially programmed hypnosis, the French anti-cult witch-hunt, and spiritual experience as an inalienable freedom.
19 November 2014
Anti-Cult France: Taking Stock (Part 2 of the CICNS Documentary)
Part 2 of the CICNS documentary: the 2006 'Enfance volée' report tested against its own hearings, and testimony from people accused of being in cults.
16 August 2014
Can the Notion of Dérive Sectaire Be Useful?
Éric Bouzou argues the state's own dérive sectaire category is incoherent: applied evenhandedly it would indict the family, the workplace and the school first.
1 August 2013
Laïcité, a Struggle at the Summit — 2013 CICNS Interview with Raphaël Liogier (1/4)
Part 1 of the 2013 CICNS interview with sociologist Raphaël Liogier, in English: the struggle inside the French State between the field ministries and the laïcité ideologues at Matignon, and the proposal of an independent observatory of spiritual minorities.
1 July 2013
The Wrong Camp: 2013 CICNS Interview with Raphaël Liogier (2/4)
Part 2 of the 2013 CICNS interview with sociologist Raphaël Liogier, in English: how asking why people believe gets read on French television as siding with evil, and the political cost Emmanuelle Mignon paid for questioning the anti-cult consensus.
1 July 2013
The Impossible Debate: 2013 CICNS Interview with Raphaël Liogier (3/4)
Part 3 of the 2013 CICNS interview with sociologist Raphaël Liogier, in English: why the cults debate is impossible on television. Anti-cult positioning is a cost-free political resource, and the thirty-second format forbids nuance.
1 July 2013
Individuo-Globalism — 2013 CICNS Interview with Raphaël Liogier (4/4)
Part 4 of the 2013 CICNS interview with sociologist Raphaël Liogier, in English: his individuo-globalism thesis — every age rests on a mythic ground, secularization does not mean less religion, and new religious movements draw on the emerging individual-global mythic soil.
1 July 2013
Health and the "Cult" Label: Interview with Sylvie Simon (2012)
English translation of the 2012 CICNS health interview with journalist Sylvie Simon on the "cult" label, non-conventional medicine, and the media in France.
22 January 2013
Cults and Free Expression: Ivan Rioufol on France's "Absurd and Useless Inquisition"
English translation of the CICNS interview with French journalist Ivan Rioufol on France's anti-cult campaign, MIVILUDES figures and media conformism.
21 January 2013
Interview with Robert Ménard on the Media and the "Cults" Question
English translation of the CICNS interview with Robert Ménard, co-founder of Reporters sans frontières, on French newsrooms, press freedom and the treatment of "cults".
19 December 2012
When a Commune Is Called a 'Cult': Mayor Caroline Yaffée's CICNS Interview
English translation of the CICNS interview with Caroline Yaffée, a Drôme mayor, on the 'cult' label, alternative medicine and Steiner schooling in France.
5 November 2012
Gilles Farcet on "Cults", Mental Manipulation and Spiritual Freedom: The CICNS Interview
English translation of the CICNS interview with writer Gilles Farcet: media-fed fear of "cults", the ambiguity of mental manipulation, and spiritual freedom.
5 November 2012
Interview with Patrick Le Berre: A "Cult" Rumour at the CEA
English translation of the CICNS interview with Patrick Le Berre, a former CEA research scientist, on the "cult" rumour and harassment he says he endured.
5 November 2012
A Fifth of the French Suspected by Those Close to Them of Being in a Cult
Denis Mathieu dissects the 2011 MIVILUDES/IPSOS poll and Georges Fenech's use of it, arguing that thirty years of state and media anti-cult propaganda have installed a suspicion no study, statistic or court record supports.
1 October 2012
Georges Fenech, Hardline Excess and Pulp Fiction
CICNS reviews Fenech's 2012 apocalypse book and walks through his Figaro interview question by question, noting the unquantified victim count and the journalist's silence at each unproven claim.
1 September 2012
A Catastrophic Meeting for M. Fenech's Anti-Cult Theses
CICNS sets Fenech's cordial account of his 2011 meeting with Bishop Konstantin Bendas against the bishop's own published verdict: armed guards, gold watches, undefined menaces, and a translator's parting line.
1 July 2012
The Ordre des Médecins Displays Its Partnership with the MIVILUDES
CICNS reads the January 2012 bulletin of France's medical council: a yoga-class cover captioned as danger, the Solar Temple invoked for a health dossier, and 258,000 copies met with silence.
1 April 2012
The Approach to the Question of the Cults in France
André Tarassi's Reflets article: an exclusive laïcité, a mission run like a militant grouplet, figures that swing from 8 children a year to 80,000 in danger, and the case for a neutral observatory instead.
1 April 2012
A Comparison of the Financial Demands of the Said Cults and of More Conventional Courses
CICNS prices a day of 'new spirituality' training against approved providers and the MIVILUDES's own 150 € course, finding the accused groups charge a fraction of what State-approved training bodies do.
1 February 2012
Professional Training Bodies and Cults: the Usual Fanciful Figures of the MIVILUDES
CICNS reconstructs the arithmetic behind Fenech's claim that 1,200 to 1,500 training bodies are cult-linked, and sets it against the DGEFP's own controls: almost 800 checks, one body assimilable to a cult.
1 February 2012
France Has Been Fighting Minorities Obsessively for Thirty Years, without Safeguards
Éric Bouzou's history of the terminology shifts from MILS to MIVILUDES, the new subjection-based definition of dérive sectaire, the online denunciation form, and why a few hundred activists outweigh half a million citizens.
1 February 2012
History of the Anti-Cult Struggle in France
CICNS's year-by-year chronicle of the anti-cult struggle in France: laws, parliamentary reports, court cases and media campaigns from 1893 to the 2010s.
21 December 2011
Cults: Social Scourge or Scapegoat? Jean Baubérot at the CICNS Colloquium
English translation of Jean Baubérot's address at the CICNS colloquium: laïcité's Gallican roots, the 1905 law, medicine and school as sites of conflict with minorities of conviction, and the risk of charismatic domination everywhere.
24 November 2011
Claude Guéant's Anti-Cult Code of Laïcité
CICNS reads the Interior Minister's 2011 compendium of laïcité law: ten pages on dérives sectaires, an undefined 'cult movement' at their centre, and questions Guéant is never asked about the About-Picard law and the MIVILUDES list.
1 November 2011
Laïcité, a "Neutralizing Neutrality"? The French State and "Cults"
English translation of a CICNS-published talk on laïcité as "neutralizing neutrality", the 1905 law, and the French state's treatment of "cults".
29 October 2011
"The Judicial System Is Sick" — Raphaël Liogier at the CICNS Round Table
English translation of Raphaël Liogier's round-table extract at the CICNS colloquium: the arbitrary versus the authoritarian, unenforceable-yet-enforced parliamentary reports, and his first-hand account of testifying as an expert in a Soka Gakkai discrimination case.
29 October 2011
Cults and Religions, a Double Standard: Anne Morelli at the CICNS Round Table
English translation of historian Anne Morelli's CICNS round-table remarks on the double standard between "cults" and recognised religions.
28 October 2011
What Regulations for the New Religious Movements in the European Union?
CICNS's annotated digest of the Luca colloquium volume: Willaime, Rolland and the MIVILUDES on the French model, the Belgian CIAOSN and Swiss CIC compared, Barker on Britain, and the exchanges where CICNS pressed from the floor.
1 August 2011
Accused of 'Dérive Sectaire': Sabine, a Doula, on Her Police Questioning
A French doula's first-person account of a two-hour judicial-police questioning in Montpellier over suspected 'dérive sectaire' — CICNS testimony in English.
4 July 2011
The Media and the MIVILUDES: Bankruptcy of a Counter-Power
CICNS's June 2011 survey of the coverage of the 2010 MIVILUDES report, outlet by outlet: France Inter's chill down the spine, the one interviewer who pushed back (the full Fenech/Ménard exchange transcribed), an LCP panel with no other side, and the report's own annex admitting Europe sees no problem.
1 June 2011
The CSA Replies to the CICNS about a Programme on "the Cults"
CICNS's December 2010 letter to the French broadcasting regulator over a France 2 programme on people 'snatched by a cult': the unnamed-but-recognisable subterfuge, the 500,000-follower figure, and the association's May 2011 commentary on the reply it received.
1 May 2011
Anti-Cult France: The State of Play (CICNS Documentary, Short Version)
English translation of the short version of the 2011 CICNS documentary on France's anti-cult apparatus, the 2006 parliamentary inquiry and its unheard victims.
29 April 2011
Raphaël Liogier at the CICNS Colloquium (1/2): Defining "Cult", Defining Laïcité
First half of Raphaël Liogier's talk at the CICNS colloquium, in English: how Western Buddhism became a good religion while Soka Gakkai did not, three definitions of the word cult, and laïcité as a contested neutrality caught in a struggle of classifications.
19 April 2011
Raphaël Liogier at the CICNS Colloquium (2/2): Why "Cults" Became France's Scapegoat
Second half of Raphaël Liogier's talk at the CICNS colloquium, in English: liberty defined from above (Rousseau vs Locke), education and medicine as the privileged conflict domains, the Longo Maï case, and the declamatory function of the anti-cult law.
19 April 2011
Cults: Social Scourge or Scapegoat? Laurent Hincker at the CICNS Colloquium
English translation of Laurent Hincker's address at the CICNS colloquium: defamation trials over the word 'cult', the 1995 criteria, the About-Picard law.
4 April 2011
In Search of the Good Psychotherapist
CICNS reads a January 2011 LCP broadcast against itself: Georges Fenech places dependence at the heart of the dérive sectaire, Serge Hefez places it at the heart of healing, and the state diploma stands in for ethics. With a partial transcript of the exchange.
1 February 2011
The Affair of the Ardennes Social Intervention Directorate (DISA)
A CICNS chronology of the DISA affair: three child-welfare educators accused of cult behaviour in 2004, one imprisoned for three months, cleared by a discharge in 2010 after two SRPJ officers admitted inventing their confessions.
1 October 2010
Comments on the Notion of "Emprise" and the "Me"
André Tarassi reads Sarah Chiche's novel L'emprise as a safe bet on the anti-cult literary wave, then turns to the phrase that leapt out at him, a victim 'emptied of her me', and asks what the modern self being protected from the cults actually is.
1 August 2010
Anti-Cult France: The State of Play (CICNS Documentary, Part 1)
English translation of part 1 of the CICNS documentary tracing the French anti-cult movement's origins, from Jonestown to the 1996 parliamentary report.
4 April 2010
Cults: "Anti-Cult France: State of Play", Part 3
English translation of part 3 of the CICNS documentary « La France antisectes »: TV talk shows, staged testimony and the 2008 Mignon controversy.
1 April 2010
The Figures of the MIVILUDES 2009 International Inquiry, Recounted
CICNS re-tallies the 57-country chapter of the 2009 report question by question: 274 No against 11 Yes, three countries resembling France, four convictions worldwide, and a bold conclusion the body of the text contradicts.
1 April 2010
The Anti-Cult Fight, or the Bankruptcy of the Media Counter-Power
CICNS surveys the French media's coverage of the 2009 MIVILUDES report, channel by channel and headline by headline: platforms without debate, figures without questions, and a press that copies the report's own summaries as news.
1 April 2010
Interview with the Brahma Kumaris: Living on France's "Cult" List
Brahma Kumaris members in France describe fiscal audits, lost jobs, surveillance and an arson attempt after the 1996 parliamentary 'cult' list — CICNS video.
24 January 2010
Burqa, Full Veil and Dérives Sectaires
Éric Bouzou reads the 2009 full-veil mission as the anti-cult playbook applied to an established religion: fear vocabulary, absent data, one veiled witness heard, and Guy Carcassonne's demolition of every ground but public order.
1 January 2010
Police Descent on Terre du Ciel at the Chardenoux Estate
CICNS documents the January 2010 police search of the Terre du Ciel centre in Saône-et-Loire, its letter campaign to the authorities, Janine Tavernier's statement of support, and the abandonment of the cult line of inquiry.
1 January 2010
The MIVILUDES Descends on the Moulin des Vallées, Accused of Being a "Cult"
Residents of the Moulin des Vallées monastery recount a 2009 MIVILUDES raid led by its president and the media coverage that followed. Translated CICNS report.
23 December 2009
The Guéniot Affair and the Accusation of "Cult": CICNS on France 2's "Prise directe"
CICNS counter-investigation of France 2's "Prise directe" (17 Nov 2009): the Guéniot affair, a physician acquitted on appeal, and trial by television.
6 December 2009
The Anti-Cult Fight: a Black Mark on Our National Identity
Éric Bouzou's 2009 essay on the Fenech offensive: the propaganda mechanics, the veil mission and France Télécom as the cases the MIVILUDES was kept away from, the science of brainwashing revisited, and the About-Picard law's avowed hypocrisy.
1 December 2009
On the Importance of Understanding Beliefs in Assessing Spiritual Minorities
André Tarassi dismantles the anti-cult movement's proudest claim, 'we judge acts, not beliefs': beliefs determine acts, rituals are unreadable without the inner experience that founded them, and the belief/act division is a discrediting device.
1 December 2009
The Guéniot Affair: A Right to Know or a Right to Smear? A CICNS Counter-Investigation
English translation of the CICNS report contrasting TV and book coverage of the Guéniot "cult" affair with the Douai appeal court's full acquittal.
14 November 2009
Interview with Jean-Luc Martin-Lagardette: Full Transcript
Full transcript of the CICNS interview with journalist Jean-Luc Martin-Lagardette on France's anti-cult policy, the MIVILUDES, and the role of the media.
1 October 2009
Interview with Stuart Wright on the Theme of "Cults"
English translation of the CICNS interview with American sociologist Stuart Wright on leaving new religious movements, apostates, and the 1993 Waco standoff.
3 July 2009
Interview with Susan Palmer on the Theme of "Cults"
English translation of the CICNS interview with Susan Palmer, Canadian sociologist, on her fieldwork among France's listed "cults" and the About-Picard law.
3 July 2009
Money: Our Society's Relationship to It, and "the Cults"
Éric Bouzou sets the parliamentary litany on 'the cults and money' against the 2009 financial system itself: the derivatives casino, debt money, the G20's mystification, and a thought experiment in which the MIVILUDES's own criteria are applied to finance.
1 May 2009
Cults: Immunity, Impunity, Anti-Cult Action, a Tailor-Made Law? A CICNS Clip
English translation of a 2009 CICNS clip arguing that France's 2008 witness-immunity law reinforces the impunity of parliamentary anti-cult commissions.
9 January 2009
Interview with Philippe Dargère on the Theme of "Cults"
English translation of the CICNS interview with naturopath Philippe Dargère on administrative pressure, the anti-cult climate and alternative health in France.
9 January 2009
The World as a "Juxtaposition of Cults"
CICNS catalogues how the word 'cult' escaped its cage in France: politicians, prosecutors, sports captains, archbishops, brand strategists and bloggers all reaching for the same pejorative, sector by sector, quote by quote.
1 December 2008
The Springs of the Anti-Cult Fight in France
On Fenech's 2008 appointment, CICNS assembles what Baubérot, Liogier, Morelli, Duval and Maffesoli told it drives the French fight against cults: Gallican surveillance, a classification struggle, a shared cake, and manufactured fear.
1 October 2008
Scientology in the Anti-Cult Hunt in France
CICNS's 2008 dossier on the scarecrow role assigned to Scientology: how the fear terminology was built, what the accusations amount to, the full list of French convictions on the record, and what a dissolution would risk.
1 September 2008
Parental Controls on the Internet and the "Cults"
CICNS tests Orange's 2008 parental-control filter and finds a hidden proscription list: 'cults' the only named category, entries that contradict the operator's own stated precautions, and no source anyone can check. The remedy proposed is an independent observatory.
1 August 2008
The CICNS Submission to the UN Universal Periodic Review on France, 2008
CICNS's full UPR dossier: the 2001 law of exception, police assaults on calumnious accusations, the fivefold-varying child figures against the ministries' own counts, the lists, the divorce spectre, and the observatory it asks for instead.
1 May 2008
Waco: What Really Happened?
CICNS's account of the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidians at Mount Carmel: the ATF raid, the 51-day standoff, the final assault, and the media narrative.
1 January 2008
Letter to My Brothers Said to Be “Under Influence”
Guy Delaunay of the Gens de Bernard community answers the January 2007 raid and the imprisonment of Claude David with a meditation on influence, reference points, guilt and freedom.
27 November 2007
The Spectre of the "Cult" in French Divorce Judgments: Three Mothers Testify
Three divorced mothers and three lawyers describe how "cult" accusations were used in French divorce and custody proceedings, in a 2007 CICNS documentary.
10 June 2007
Interview with Laurent Ladouce on the Theme of "Cults"
English translation of the CICNS interview with Laurent Ladouce of the Unification Church on the "Moon cult" media campaigns, deprogramming and the MIVILUDES.
12 February 2007
Politics and Spirituality: Was Anti-Cultism Born on the Left?
André Tarassi traces French anti-cultism to 1981 and the Vivien mission, names its most committed actors on the left, surveys the 'without-religion' half of France, and reads the 1999 party-funding proposals as anti-democratic.
1 February 2007
Dialogue Between a "Free Thinker" and the Founder of the CICNS
The full January 2007 exchange between Michel Thys, Belgian free thinker and Grand Orient mason, and André Tarassi of the CICNS: twenty questions on belief and choice, the suicide and child-protection figures, the iceberg argument, and two spiritualities talking across the divide.
1 January 2007
Christiane Singer on the Anti-Cult 'Witch-Hunt': The Short CICNS Interview
English translation of the short CICNS interview (2006) with writer Christiane Singer: the French anti-cult witch-hunt as a passing fever of morbid rationalism.
12 November 2006
Interview with Bernard Montaud on the Theme of "Cults"
English translation of the CICNS interview with Bernard Montaud, founder of psychanalyse corporelle, on France's post-Solar-Temple climate around "cults".
11 November 2006
Interview with Bernard Biro on the Theme of "Cults"
English translation of the CICNS interview with French lawyer Bernard Biro on 'cult' accusations in the courts, the About-Picard law and defamation remedies.
11 November 2006
The "Cults" Debate Seen from Québec: Eugénie Francoeur's CICNS Interview
English translation of the CICNS interview with Québec journalist Eugénie Francoeur on new spiritualities in Canada, Britain and France.
11 November 2006
Interview with Jean-Pierre Joseph on the Theme of "Cults"
English translation of the CICNS interview with Grenoble lawyer Jean-Pierre Joseph on the 1995 French parliamentary report on "cults" and the events around it.
11 November 2006
Interview with Jean-Claude Guyard on the Theme of "Cults"
Kinesiology school head Jean-Claude Guyard on the Brittany trial, UNADFI and the anti-cult climate in France, in his 2006 CICNS interview.
11 November 2006
Interview with Christian Tal Schaller on the Theme of "Cults"
Christian Tal Schaller's CICNS interview: the 1997 gendarmerie raid on his health institute, the trials that followed, and the "cult deviance" label.
11 November 2006
Interview with Bernard Renaud on the Theme of "Cults"
English translation of the CICNS interview with Bernard Renaud, esoteric bookseller and publisher, on how France's 1990s anti-cult campaign hit publishing.
10 November 2006
Interview with Christian Paturel on the Theme of "Cults"
English translation of the CICNS video interview with Christian Paturel, the jurist vindicated by the European Court of Human Rights in Paturel v. France (2005).
10 November 2006
The Incredible Case of L'Essentiel: Report on a French "Cult Case"
Unnamed members of the publishing venture in France's L'Essentiel affair recount the raid, custody, house arrest and years of proceedings in this translated CICNS report.
10 November 2006
Interview with Michel Maffesoli on the Theme of "Cults"
English translation of the CICNS video interview with sociologist Michel Maffesoli on postmodern religiosity, the wild sacred, and France's anti-cult scapegoating.
10 November 2006
Interview with Philippe Pérollier on the Theme of "Cults"
English translation of the CICNS interview with Marseille lawyer Philippe Pérollier on French anti-cult case law, the 1996 list and the About-Picard law.
10 November 2006
Interview with Régis Dericquebourg on the Theme of "Cults"
English translation of the CICNS interview with sociologist Régis Dericquebourg on fieldwork among healing churches and France's anti-cult climate.
10 November 2006
Interview with Pastor Dominique Kounkou on the Theme of "Cults"
English translation of the CICNS interview with pastor and jurist Dominique Kounkou on the "cult" label, African-expression churches and the About-Picard law.
9 November 2006
Interview with Jean Baubérot on the Theme of "Cults"
English translation of the CICNS interview with Jean Baubérot on the 1905 law, the MILS, the MIVILUDES, and religious minorities in France.
9 November 2006
Interview with Jean-Marc Florand on the Theme of "Cults"
English translation of the CICNS interview with lawyer Jean-Marc Florand on the legal void around "cults", the About-Picard law and France's anti-cult bodies.
9 November 2006
Interview with Pierre Barrucand on the Theme of "Cults"
English translation of the CICNS interview with Pierre Barrucand, CNRS researcher, on the history of French anti-cult campaigns.
4 November 2006
Interview with Sylvie Simon on the Theme of "Cults"
English translation of the 2006 CICNS video interview with French journalist Sylvie Simon on the branding of alternative health practices as 'cults' in France.
4 November 2006
Interview with Massimo Introvigne: Full Transcript
Full transcript of the CICNS interview with sociologist Massimo Introvigne on the history of brainwashing theory, MK-ULTRA, deprogramming, and anti-cult laws.
1 November 2006
The DGAS Circular of 1 June 2006 on Dérives Sectaires
CICNS reproduces and annotates the social-action circular that wires every welfare directorate into the anti-cult watch: reinforced vigilance on accreditations, monthly correspondent meetings, and a dedicated reporting mailbox.
1 June 2006
Interview with Raphaël Liogier: Full Transcript
Full transcript of the CICNS interview with sociologist Raphaël Liogier on French laïcité, state neutrality as intervention, and how 'good' and 'bad' religions are classified.
1 May 2006
Sex and Power: Politicians and Spiritual Leaders, an Unequal Treatment
The companion essay to Tarassi's abuse dossier: why French media consign politicians' escapades to oblivion while blowing up the gurus', and what a taboo domain offers a society in search of scapegoats.
1 January 2006
Spiritual Minorities and Sexual Abuse?
André Tarassi's 2006 dossier on the great sexual-abuse affairs involving spiritual leaders, from Chopra's ten-minute acquittal to the Mandarom defamation rulings: what survived the courts, what remained rumour, and the invisible abuse of score-settling behind the stigmatisation campaign.
1 January 2006
Interview with Anne Morelli: Full Transcript
Full transcript of the CICNS interview with historian Anne Morelli (ULB) on who decides the label 'cult', media treatment of religious minorities, and freedom of conscience.
1 November 2005
The Kinesiology Affair
Éric Bouzou's May 2005 article on the Moëlan-sur-Mer trial: five people in the dock, but Kinesiology itself pointed at, and behind the amalgam a question of fear and power. With the AFP dispatch on the verdict reproduced and annotated.
1 May 2005
The Right to the Audacity to Think
Alain Chevillat of Terre du Ciel recounts the press barrage that greeted one invited speaker at his Aix-les-Bains forum, dismantles the parliamentary report the censors brandished, and claims for the individual the right to think differently, including the right to be wrong.
1 March 2005
Interview with Maurice Duval: Full Transcript
Full transcript of the CICNS interview with ethnologist Maurice Duval, in English: his four-year field study of the Mandarom, the censorship that followed, why the word 'cult' has no sociological meaning, and the manufacture of collective fear.
1 March 2005
Suicide and the Cults
Valérie Dole assembles what the serious research actually says about suicide in France, from the WHO figures to the prisons to Durkheim, and finds spiritual membership nowhere among the causes; the parallel drawn by anti-cultism runs the other way.
1 January 2005
Amalgames: The Elements of a Manipulation
A CICNS essay of pointed questions about conflation: why acts found across all of society are treated as defining crimes when they occur in spiritual minorities.
1 January 2004
Leave Us Our Charlatans!
The December 2003 Le Monde text-petition by Marcela Iacub and Patrice Maniglier against the Accoyer amendment: patients asking the health authorities to stop protecting them from their own freely chosen therapists.
2 December 2003