InvestigationIn recent years, it has more or less disappeared from the radars of the State services responsible for the fight against sectarian aberrations, Miviludes in the lead. However, the powerful organization has not disarmed and intends to make the building acquired in Saint-Denis, near the Stade de France, its flagship before the Olympic Games in 2024.
The building could be owned by any company. The glass facade offers no clue as to the owner of this octagonal building in the heart of the Saint-Denis business district, 300 meters from the Stade de France, in Seine-Saint-Denis. Inside, the 7,300 square meter space is completely empty. The giant inscription “For rent”, still visible from the A1 motorway along the site, would deceive even the simple passer-by.
However, the building, bought for 33 million euros in 2017, is owned by the Church of Scientology. The organization, until then present in the 17e Parisian district, intends to make it its new HQ in France. A 700-seat auditorium, study and meeting rooms, the reconstitution of an office of Ron Hubbard, the founder, and even saunas for the “cleansing cures” recommended to followers are planned.
A few meters from the future Olympic village
The structure thus follows the same model as the “ideal orgs”, these complexes opened with great fanfare where all the services offered by Scientology are united. There are some in New York, Tokyo, Bogotá, Brussels or London, but not in France. The future installation in the Dionysian city has everything of a show of force. Especially when we know that the future Olympic village for the Paris 2024 Games will be only a few meters away. A beautiful showcase that Scientology hopes to take advantage of.
Saint-Denis thus finds itself at the heart of an international expansion plan for the Church of Scientology, but the information has obviously escaped most of the local employees. At JLA Groupe (an audiovisual production company), the switchboard operator opens wide astonished eyes before calling her colleagues to share the news. Same reaction to the neighboring bakery as well as to the regional center of the tax control department. “Is there a danger? “, ends up worrying an employee of Ranstadt, a company specializing in temporary work and recruitment located nearby.
They seem forgotten, those years when Serge Blisko, then president of the Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and the Fight against Sectarian Abuses (Miviludes), assured, in 2013, at Figaro : “Scientology remains our toughest opponent. ” Founded in 1954 by the American Ron Hubbard (died in 1986), the organization is defined as a religion (it is also recognized as such in the United States and in certain European countries, but not in France) allowing to to acquire “A knowledge of mind, spirit and life”.
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