Sonia Backès is Secretary of State in charge of Citizenship.
In the collective imagination, sectarian excesses are implausible stories of gurus in white robes, enlightened preachers, esoteric symbols and assemblies of indoctrinated believers.
The reality is very different and much more pernicious.
An evolving phenomenon
Over the past ten years, sectarian aberrations have evolved: to the multinationals of spirituality which continue to rage, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Church of Scientology, are now added a myriad of movements and individuals who invest particularly in the fields of health, food and well-being.
The health crisis and the resurgence of a certain form of obscurantism have constituted an ideal breeding ground for these new excesses.
Their figureheads act online, exploiting concerns, providing simple and often simplistic answers to existential questions, playing on the proximity of social networks and their virality.
They federate real communities around them, sometimes becoming as many "faithful" under influence.
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This development is accompanied by an increase in the number of victims.
In 2021, 4,020 reports were registered with the Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and the Fight against Sectarian Abuses (Miviludes), a record.
This figure is constantly increasing: + 33% between 2020 and 2021 and + 86% since 2015.
Faced with this phenomenon whose contours are too little known, we must change the action of the State to better prevent these abuses, better support the victims and effectively prosecute their perpetrators.
Prevent
Let's be clear: it is not a question of the State legitimizing or delegitimizing this or that belief because, let's remember,
“the Republic guarantees everyone freedom of conscience”
.
It is up to it, on the other hand, to protect its citizens, particularly the most vulnerable, from the health, social and financial risks posed by sectarian aberrations and to act firmly against those for whom mental influence is often a goodwill before become a blank check to all abuses.
The fight against sectarian aberrations requires, first and foremost, better risk prevention and broader information for our fellow citizens.
Sonia Backes
This phenomenon concerns all social categories, all ages, all backgrounds.
We are all susceptible to being a victim.
However, the victims do not realize that they are, their loved ones are poorly informed and are often powerless to act.
This is how on October 18, 2020, a 77-year-old woman died of kidney cancer after giving up her treatment, on the advice of a prominent naturopath.
This is how in August 2021, a 44-year-old woman with no medical history died following a "water treatment".
This is how J. was reduced to the status of a sexual slave and regularly raped by another guru who had since been sentenced to 15 years in prison.
The fight against sectarian aberrations requires, first and foremost, better risk prevention and broader information for our fellow citizens.
There are still major efforts to be made to better inform the French about alternative care practices, the springs of anthroposophical education or the abuses of Scientology.
The State must therefore be more present on the networks, on the ground and make these abuses better known to the general public.
To accompany
For several months, I have been talking to associations and State services and I have been convinced that we must improve support for victims and promote free speech.
For this, we must also allow their relatives, their colleagues, their friends to detect the signals of indoctrination and to help them.
The Miviludes, the associations and the prefectures are already carrying out exceptional work, but we must reflect, for the future, on local support, on a reinforced territorial network to improve the reception and orientation of victims.
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We also need to train more extensively the police, magistrates and representatives of the administrations in reception and listening, following the example of what we have been able to do in the fight against violence against Women's.
We must also, and I promise to do so, increase the means granted to Miviludes to support these developments.
Pursue
Finally, we cannot do without revising our legal arsenal.
The sectarian phenomenon evolves and we must adapt to these evolutions.
At the beginning of last month, the trial of the Institut Aubert de Vincennes opened, a school infiltrated by Scientology, 25 years after the events.
An eternity for the victims.
In most cases affecting the intimate, the time of justice is too often incompatible with the time of reconstruction necessary for the victims.
Sectarian aberrations are a perverse and insidious mechanism that leads to social isolation, very often to ruin and in the most dramatic cases to death.
Sonia Backes
In this context and in order to adapt the State's response, I wanted to organize the first national meetings for the fight against sectarian aberrations.
They will bring together the relevant State services, institutional partners, members of Parliament, the Government, representatives of associations as well as European and national actors, experts and qualified personalities.
This is an unprecedented event in its scope but also in its ambitions: building a common project to fight against sectarian aberrations, adapting our resources and making them sustainable.
Sectarian excesses are not sympathetic and vaguely folkloric beliefs carried by harmless originals.
It is a perverse and insidious mechanism that leads to social isolation, very often to ruin and in the most dramatic cases to death.
Sectarian excesses are a lucrative business for unscrupulous charlatans.
Sectarian aberrations are thousands of victims in our country.
To these victims, I want to say that the State is more determined than ever to help them and to combat this phenomenon which is methodically eating away at social ties.