For several months, LGBT + activists, associations and some elected officials have been asking for legislation to ban "conversion therapy".
Sometimes referred to as restorative sexual reorientation therapy, this is a set of pseudo-scientific treatments used with the controversial goal of attempting to change a person's sexual orientation from homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual. .
Such therapies are also often offered to transgender people.
The Minister in charge of Citizenship, Marlène Schiappa, announced to entrust to Miviludes, the interministerial mission of vigilance and fight against sectarian excesses, a mission "on the unworthy practice" of these therapies. It "aims to explain, exemplify and quantify the phenomenon, in particular by analyzing its dimension of sectarian drift", according to a press release. This body for the fight against sectarian aberrations attached to the Ministry of the Interior will within a month to formulate "operational proposals to perfect the means of fight put in place against these practices".
However, it is difficult to know how many people have been subjected to these practices.
"Dozens and dozens of testimonies have come out", recently assured AFP Timothée de Rauglaudre, co-author of the book "God is love" and of the documentary "Homotherapies, forced conversion".
Attacks on human dignity and integrity
Elisabeth Moreno, the minister responsible for equality was questioned on this issue in May by Laurence Vanceunebrock, the deputy La République en Marche (LRM).
“These practices, which consider homosexuality or transidentity as diseases are terribly violent.
Can you tell us how the government can support the victims and convict their torturers?
She said.
For the minister, "conversion therapy" is an attack on human dignity and integrity and the practices are strictly prohibited in France. “The victims can therefore file a complaint (…). Our penal code strongly condemns offenses of abuse of weakness or harassment, offenses of discrimination, homophobic remarks as well as willful violence, ”she recalled.
But for associations, the existing legislative arsenal is insufficient to combat these practices. “As long as the criminal qualification of these practices and the specific offense do not exist, it will be impossible to identify and fight them. At the present time, we have to go through roundabout means (complaint for willful violence, abuse of weakness, etc.) which do not allow us to be recognized as victims of these “conversion therapies”.