Parliamentary Commission about Cults in France

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The French authorities set up the Parliamentary Commission on Cults in France (Commission parlementaire sur les sectes en France) on 11 July 1995 following the events involving the members of the Order of the Solar Temple in late 1994 in the French region of Vercors, in Switzerland and in Canada. Chaired by deputy Alain Gest, a member of the Union for French Democracy conservative party, the Commission had to determine what constitutes a cult (compared to legitimate new religious movements (NRMs)). It came to categorize various groups according to their supposed threat or innocuity (towards members themselves or towards society and the state).

In 2005 the then Prime Minister of France, in a circulaire which stressed on-going vigilance in the fight against cults, and which did mention the Commission's report, suggests that due to changes in cult behavior and organization the list of specific cults appended to the report had become less pertinent. The Prime Minister asked his civil servants in certain cases to avoid depending on generic lists of cult groups but instead to apply criteria set in consultation with the Interministerial Commission for Monitoring and Combatting Cultic Deviances (MIVILUDES).

1 1995
2 1999
3 2000
4 2004
5 2005
6 See also
7 References
8 External links

[edit] 1995

The published report of the Commission (also known as the Rapport Gest-Guyard), appeared on 22 December 1995. It remains to this day one of the very few official attempts in the world to categorize various movements according to the potential threat they may present. Some non-French-citizens and certain organizations criticized its categorization-methodology as such. Critics included the Church of Scientology, which did not want to see itself classified as a cult (which nevertheless occurred in the end). The Parliamentary Commission always bore in mind the difficulties of establishing any objective classification, although it never called into question the actual ethical and political imperatives of doing so, especially in the wake of the Order of the Solar Temple "mass suicides" and other dangerous cult activities occurring around the world (such as, for example, the 1995 poison-gas attack in Tokyo's subway by the Aum Shinrikyo cult). The Commission held various hearings of persons involved in new-religious-movement activities or in anti-cult movements, and had the French secret service Renseignements Généraux give it lists of NRM activities and memberships.

[edit] 1999

A further French parliamentary commission reported in 1999 on cults in connection with money and the economy.

[edit] 2000

The 2000 annual report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor of the U.S. Department of State, stated:

The ensuing publicity [by the release of a parliamentary report against "sectes"] contributed to an atmosphere of intolerance and bias against minority religions. Some religious groups reported that their members suffered increased intolerance after having been identified on the list.

[edit] 2004

In its 2004 annual report, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom stated:

[...] official government initiatives and activities that targets "sects" or "cults" have fueled an atmosphere of intolerance toward members of minority religions in France. [...] These initiatives [the publication of reports characterizing specific groups as dangerous and the creating of agencies to monitor and fight these groups] are particularly troubling because they are serving as models for countries in Eastern Europe where the rule of law and other human rights are much weaker than in France.

The 2004 report concluded with an assessment that the restructuring of the main French agency concerned with this issue (referring to the new MIVILUDES replacing its predecessor, the Mission Interministérielle pour la Lutte contre les Sectes [Interministerial Commission to Combat the Cults] (MILS), had reportedly improved religious freedoms in France. ^[1]

[edit] 2005

On 27 May 2005 (just before he left office), the then Prime Minister of France, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, issued a circulaire on the ongoing struggle against cultic activities in France. The document suggests that because of the changing methodology of cultic groups, the list of specific cults appended to the report of the 1995 Parliamentary Commission 1995 had become less pertinent:

Cette vigilance doit s'exercer en tenant compte de l'évolution du phénomène sectaire, qui rend la liste de mouvements annexée au rapport parlementaire de 1995 de moins en moins pertinente. On constate en effet la formation de petites structures, diffuses, mouvantes et moins aisément identifiables, qui tirent en particulier parti des possibilités de diffusion offertes par l'internet. [Translation: We must exercise this vigilance in taking account of the evolution of the cult-phenomenon, which makes the list of movements attached to the Parliamentary Report of 1995 less and less pertinent. Indeed, one can observe the formation of small groups, scattered, mobile and less-easily identifiable, and which make use in particular of the possibilities of spreading offered by the Internet.] ^[2])

Furthermore, M. Raffarin suggested that in certain cases his civil servants should avoid depending on generic lists of groups:

[U]n certain nombre d'instructions ministérielles données par vos prédécesseurs doivent être actualisées en fonction des orientations définies par la présente circulaire. Je vous demande de procéder à cet examen en lien avec la MIVILUDES. En tout état de cause, les références aux organismes comme l'Observatoire des sectes ou la Mission interministérielle de lutte contre les sectes (MILS) devront être remplacées par des références au décret instituant la MIVILUDES, et le recours à des listes de groupements sera évité au profit de l'utilisation de faisceaux de critères. Je vous demande de procéder à cette mise à jour au plus tard pour le 31 décembre 2005. [Translation: A certain number of ministerial instructions issued by your predecessors should be brought up-to-date in the light of the approaches defined in the current circulaire. I ask you to carry out this scrutiny in consultation with MIVILUDES. In each case of justification, references to bodies such as the Cult Monitor or to the Interministerial Commission for Struggle against Cults (MILS) should be replaced with references to the decree setting up MIVILUDES, and falling back on lists of groups should be avoided in favor of using bands of criteria. I ask that you perform this update by 31 December 2005 at the latest.] ^[3]