The National Assembly began on Tuesday afternoon the examination of a bill to strengthen the fight against sectarian abuses, particularly online, where new gurus and their promises of personal development abound.
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“Gurus 2.0, conspiracy sphere, the scourge of sectarian excesses is constantly evolving and deserves to adapt our law,”
underlined Secretary of State Sabrina Agresti-Roubache, at the opening of the debates.
The Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and the Fight against Sectarian Abuses (Miviludes)
“warns about the miracle solutions proposed by certain pseudo-therapists against cancerous pathologies, such as mistletoe injections or lemon juice,” she indicated. .
This bill of limited scope was approved by the Senate just before Christmas but with a series of modifications to which the Assembly could return during this first reading.
A new offense of “psychological subjection”
In committee, the deputies, for example, reinstated an article creating a new offense of placement or maintenance in a state of
“psychological subjection”,
in order to better understand the “
specificities of sectarian influence”,
according to the government.
“We wish to act upstream of the abuse of weakness by sanctioning the very fact of subjecting a person by serious or repeated pressure, or by techniques capable of altering judgment,”
explained Ms. Agresti-Roubache
.
Also read: A new strategy to combat sectarian abuses
This bill also establishes as an aggravating circumstance the abuse of weakness committed by means of a digital or electronic medium, the penalties being increased from three years of imprisonment and a fine of 375,000 euros today to five years of imprisonment. and 750,000 euros fine if the proposed law comes into force.
Protect minors
The deputies of the Laws Committee also supported the more controversial creation of the offense of
“provocation to the abandonment or abstention of care, or to the adoption of practices”
exposing to a
“serious risk to health”,
a measure that the Senate had removed.
In the hemicycle, the Insoumis Jean-François Coulomme denounced this offense
“too vague, which threatens our freedoms, for example to criticize pharmaceutical abuses”,
he believes.
In committee, the left had more broadly judged the text too focused on
“repression”,
rather than on prevention.
The LR deputy, Éric Pauget, also warned that the right, as in the Senate, would oppose this article 4 of the law.
Subject to 180 amendments, this text also intends to protect minors with extended limitation periods.
The Renaissance rapporteur, Brigitte Liso, underlines that
“the number of reports of sectarian aberrations almost doubled between 2015 and 2021”
, with 4,020 recorded in 2021.