A report by the dedicated inter-ministerial mission (Miviludes) points to a significant increase in “sectarian actions” in France.
SourceAFP
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Lhe Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and the Fight against Sectarian Aberrations (Miviludes) unveiled an alarming report on Wednesday, November 2: we discover that the country experienced “an unprecedented increase in acts of a sectarian nature” in 2021. Miviludes received 4,020 referrals in 2021, an increase of 33.6% over the previous year and nearly 50% over 2015, the report says. This number “reflects only a trend and only allows us to observe the tip of an iceberg whose magnitude is not known”, warns Miviludes, many victims remaining “totally undetectable”.
In 2021, the health crisis continued to play a role of “catalyst for everyone’s fears and frustrations”. “Isolated and perfectly autonomous manipulators were able to easily exploit this context to spread their doctrine on social networks”, observes Miviludes, an organization attached to the Ministry of the Interior since 2020. These “gurus 2.0” are at the head of groups “mobile, changing and impalpable”, characteristics of a sectarian phenomenon “in a gaseous state”.
“Multinationals of sectarian aberrations”
Health remains “a subject of major concern”, with 744 referrals processed. Nearly 70% of them relate to “unconventional care practices such as naturopathy, reiki, new Germanic medicine, etc. have become a “public health issue”.
Another subject of attention for the Interministerial Mission: personal development, which generated 173 referrals in 2021. The manipulation techniques used in the context of personal development training can lead individuals “to sell their property, to leave the family home , their spouse in return for the promise of a dream life,” warns Miviludes.
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The “multinationals of sectarian aberrations” – in the words of the Secretary of State for Citizenship, Sonia Backès, to AFP, such as the Church of Scientology, Anthroposophy or Jehovah’s Witnesses, have also continued generate numerous referrals. In the same way as “the Christian movement in the broad sense” (293 referrals including 106 on Catholicism and 168 on Protestantism), according to Miviludes
In this context, “sectarian aberrations and conspiracy meetings” will be organized “at the beginning of 2023” to bring together the actors in the fight against these phenomena and come up with a roadmap for the years to come, said Ms. Backès.