#NothingCure. This Tuesday, January 25, Parliament definitively adopted a bill aimed at banning conversion therapy, supposed to “cure” LGBT people by imposing heterosexuality on them.
The law was adopted unanimously by the 142 deputies present. The text provides for the creation of a new offense in the Criminal Code punishing these practices with at least two years’ imprisonment and a fine of 30,000 euros.
Led by LREM MP Laurence Vanceunebrock and LFI MP Bastien Lachaud, this bill was strongly supported by associations, Internet users, and many stars such as singer Eddy de Pretto. It is now in the hands of the Senate.
#NothingAWar https://t.co/15gr9F3hUa
— Eddy de Pretto (@eddydepretto) April 29, 2021
On Twitter, Emmanuel Macron expressed his pride in the adoption of the text. “The law prohibiting conversion therapy is adopted unanimously! Let’s be proud, these unworthy practices have no place in the Republic. Because being yourself is not a crime, because there is nothing to cure,” writes the president.
The law prohibiting conversion therapies is adopted unanimously!
Let’s be proud, these unworthy practices have no place in the Republic. Because being yourself is not a crime, because there is nothing to be cured.
—Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) January 25, 2022
The Minister for Equality between Women and Men, Diversity and Equal Opportunities, Elisabeth Moreno, for her part tweeted: “It’s done! Conversion therapies, these barbaric practices from another time, are definitely prohibited in our country.
It’s done !
Conversion therapies, these barbaric practices from another time, are definitely prohibited in our country.#NothingAWar@LaurenceVanceu @CCastaner@RienAGuerir pic.twitter.com/Vo8s0lGDWt
— Elisabeth Moreno (@1ElisaMoreno) January 25, 2022
The news also caused a reaction, the presidential candidate, Anne Hidalgo, who “welcomes this major step forward which will make it possible to fight more effectively against these intolerable practices towards LGBTQI + people.”
Very widespread in the United States, conversion therapies are exercised in France by “healers” or groups in certain dioceses. Each time, the objective is the same: to force LGBT people to adopt the heterosexual norm. But depending on these so-called “therapies” the method differs.
According to Laurence Vanceunebrock and Bastien Lachaud, they can be classified into three categories: “religious”, with calls for abstinence and “exorcism” sessions; the “medical”, with hormonal treatments, hypnosis, even electroshock; and “societal” ones, through the use of heterosexual “forced marriages”. In all cases, these practices “have dramatic and lasting effects on the physical and mental health of those who experience them: depression, isolation, suicide”, detail Laurence Vanceunebrock and Bastien Lachaud.
Up to three years in prison
It is difficult to estimate the number of people affected. Conversion “therapies” are very difficult to quantify in France: in 2019, Laurence Vanceneubrock and Bastien Lachaud mentioned “a hundred recent cases” and an “increase in reports”.
Last July, Miviludes, responsible for identifying sectarian aberrations in France, received “very few reports on conversion therapies” between 2018 and 2020, “while the parliamentary mission made it possible to free speech and to bring to light their existence on French territory”. To fill the lack of data on the subject, Laurence Vanceneubrock puts forward his bill, which would make it possible to better take the measure of the phenomenon and to support the victims faced with the difficulty of filing a complaint.
In Europe, Germany and Malta have already banned conversion “therapy”. Similar steps are underway in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.