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The French National Assembly adopted the controversial legislation on May 30, almost 18 months after the Senate adopted initial draft legislation in December 1999. Passage of the law, which states its intention as the protection of “human rights and basic freedoms,” has served to re-ignite the sometimes venomous debate as to the law’s merits and implications.
Call for legislative action arose from fundamental concerns about controversial movements such as Scientology, the Unification Church, the Children of God/Family and the Order of the Solar Temple.
Critics expressed concern that the law gives no definition to the term “cultic movement,” saying the new law could repress minority religious groups. Prominent Protestant and Catholic leaders, as well as human rights groups, have criticized it as a blow to religious freedom.
“The state violates its own principle of religious neutrality,” Protestant academic Jean Bauberot was quoted as saying in the May 31 Le Monde newspaper.
The president of the Protestant Federation of France, Jean Arnold de Clermont, cited an emergence of hostility towards evangelicals in France. He said this hostility was due to both political leaders’ growing ignorance of the current religious landscape and the lack of religious education in schools and society. De Clermont also said that France’s anti-cult law is becoming a source of inspiration for countries of Central and Eastern Europe and for China, where religious freedom is not always respected.
“One of the major human rights problems round the world today is the lack of religious liberty, especially for minority Christian groups,” said Michel Wharton, director of Open Doors France, a Christian ministry that aids persecuted Christians. “France is widely seen as the ‘patrie’ of modern human rights,” Wharton said. “It is a shame that this new law will not only encourage those elsewhere in the world who seek to oppress in the name of combating cults, but do nothing to disarm the suspicion inherent in French society today toward minority religions.”
De Clermont and the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Bille, in a letter addressed to French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, expressed specific concerns about three points in the law: the use of the controversial concept of “cult,” which they say is legally indefinable; the ability to dissolve religious associations; and the perception of abuse by proselytizing religious groups.
The law allows courts to dissolve associations condemned for damages to individuals, illegal use of medicine or pharmaceuticals, or for using misleading publicity or fraud. It also stipulates that banned groups that re-form under a different name can face prosecution.
A controversial clause introduced in June 2000 making “mental manipulation” a crime sparked an outcry from several minority religious groups, Catholic and Protestant leaders and academics. It was eventually dropped after an official consultative human rights body, as well as then-Justice Minister Elisabeth Guigou found it questionable.
It was replaced by a similar provision that already exists in the penal code that makes a crime of “fraudulent abuse of a person in a state of psychological or physical dependence … caused by the exertion of heavy or repeated pressure or techniques liable to alter his/her judgment ….”
According to the law’s sponsors, however, the legislation is meant “to strengthen prevention and repression of sectarian groups liable to undermine human rights and fundamental freedom.” Socialist National Assembly Member Catherine Picard said, “It is the first time in the world that legislation will deal with sectarian groups,” and she was pleased that “France is the leader in Europe of this fight.”
August 3, 2001