The Anti-Cult Fight, or the Bankruptcy of the Media Counter-Power

The Anti-Cult Fight, or the Bankruptcy of the Media Counter-Power

By the CICNS team (April 2010)

On 7 April 2010, Frédéric Taddéi invited journalists onto the set of Ce soir ou jamais (France 3) to take stock of the level of confidence the traditional media inspire in public opinion. Robert Ménard (founder of Reporters sans frontières) and Laurent Joffrin (director of Libération) acknowledged that the media were reproached with being too close to power, while suggesting that this impression was false. Philippe Merlant, also present on the set, had for his part answered this question far more sharply in his book (co-authored with Luc Chatel) “Médias: faillite d’un contre-pouvoir”.

For journalists sceptical about the problematic links between journalism and power in France, the media coverage of the release of the 2009 report of the MIVILUDES is a choice example, demonstrating how, passively or actively, television channels and newspapers offered an exclusive platform to the MIVILUDES, or organised debates presented as adversarial but revealing an evident bias of the editorial managements (or of the journalists themselves) in favour of the theses developed by the interministerial mission. While it is true that the media enthusiasm for the MIVILUDES report was lower than the previous year (notably on the television channels) - as if Georges Fenech’s extremist ideological rhetoric, once the first surprise had passed, aroused less agitation -, the mission’s communication was sufficient to generate in the media the usual quota of disinformation on the perennial theme of the “cults”.

Every year, the MIVILUDES invents new scourges presented as national causes; in 2008 Satanism was, among other things, one of the dangers to be warded off; in 2009, shamanism (the MIVILUDES report speaks of the “tidal wave of neo-shamanism”) and “nutritionism” are denounced, with the media hastening to disseminate these “terrible revelations”.

The virulence of the anti-cult combat waged in France by the public authorities is largely supported by the media. All the articles or programmes about spiritual minorities are “for the prosecution”. More and more programmes use journalistic techniques that are questionable, and criticised within the profession itself: hidden cameras, infiltration, false identities (see an article in Le Monde), and surf on the ambient fears and amalgams. Conversely, articles or programmes seeking to understand the spiritual minorities with curiosity and open-mindedness are exceedingly rare; We found one decent report on a spiritual community established abroad, which well illustrates the French state of mind on the question: the new spiritualities outside our borders are considered exotic and rather likeable but, as soon as they penetrate our borders, they become diabolical. Thus, according to the 2009 MIVILUDES report, shamanism is respectable, far from home; but as soon as it arrives on our territory, it becomes “neo-shamanism” and joins the cohort of the “cults”.

The media’s lack of seriousness in their study of the French situation is equalled only by their lack of interest in the same questions abroad. If they had read the interministerial mission’s report correctly, they would have observed that it had itself supplied the proof that the cult question is a “non-problem” in almost all the countries consulted. The only possible conclusion is therefore an artificial distortion of these questions in the French context (see our critical commentary on the 2009 MIVILUDES report). The caricature of the minority spiritual groups is in fact the caricature of the gaze cast by the MIVILUDES, part of Parliament, the anti-cult associations and the media upon these same minorities.

There is therefore indeed a bankruptcy of the media’s counter-power on the theme of the “cults”. Since the journalists’ corporation is not gifted at self-criticism (the only critical actors being practically forced to leave the media system in order to express themselves), all that remains to us is a persevering and patient work of awareness-raising and challenge, to remind them of their responsibility for the state of society, and to invite them to more courage and open-mindedness about the legitimate place of minorities in French society. The traditional media could profitably draw inspiration from new alternative media such as the site Ouvertures.

The media and the release of the 2009 MIVILUDES report

We have selected a sample of the pieces or programmes of the principal traditional media commenting on the release of the 2009 MIVILUDES report, from an Internet search. This search makes no claim to be exhaustive, but it is sufficient to support our argument about the failing role of the media on the question of the said cults.

Television channels

LCPAN (the parliamentary channel) - Ça vous regarde - “The fight against the cults, a priority?” (7 April 2010)

This programme is among the most caricatural on the theme of the cults, and under the label of “debate”. Only the most virulent anti-cult protagonists (Georges Fenech, Jean-Pierre Brard, the vice-president of the UNADFI, the journalist Serge Faubert) were present. The questions of the presenter Arnaud Ardoin had no other use than to serve as a foil for his panel’s answers. This was not a debate but an open platform offered to the MIVILUDES, without the slightest critical spirit. Should one be surprised, since LCPAN and the MIVILUDES have signed a partnership agreement to “favour the conditions of information of the citizens” (See our press release on the “partnership” between LCPAN and the MIVILUDES)? See also our press release about this programme.

France 5 - Revu et corrigé (10 April 2010, go to 52’40)

The team of Revu et corrigé contacted the CICNS in search of a sociologist to provide the counter-argument to Georges Fenech. We pointed out to the editorial team that it seemed to us indispensable to have more time in order to present alternative information in a context hostile to any real contradiction. The sociologist Raphaël Liogier nevertheless accepted the invitation of Revu et corrigé and brought, as far as could be done, expertise and lucidity to an environment that cruelly lacks both.

This programme presented a minimal possibility of debate, but its content reveals that the journalists had taken up the cause of the MIVILUDES’s discourse and that the counter-argument brought by Raphaël Liogier carried a heavy handicap. At the start of the programme, Paul Amar presented the MIVILUDES as “the mission against the cults”. Presumably warned of this blunder, he corrected himself at the start of the segment. One may legitimately wonder how many years and programmes will be necessary for experienced journalists to realise that France is not supposed to be fighting the cults but the dérives sectaires. The reflex of mixing up the two notions ought to invite them to reflect on the hypocrisy of the French anti-cult system. But apparently nothing works.

Paul Amar introduced the subject as follows: “The dérives sectaires persist and (…) gurus of every kind ceaselessly display a diabolical skill, the MIVILUDES demonstrated it again this week”. There followed the inevitable “buzz”, a condensate of images and amalgams taken from various channels, without head or tail, allowing the makers of the sequence, without any further form of analysis, to validate the MIVILUDES’s work. The report was so much to Georges Fenech’s taste that he paid homage to the journalists. When such homage is paid by a representative of the public authorities on a theme where all alternative reflection has been deliberately erased (the Revu et corrigé team having contacted us, it was quite knowingly that it ignored an alternative source of information for its buzz), in a “debate” during which a sociologist specialising in the subject considers that the MIVILUDES ought to be replaced by a body of the Inform type (see also our project for an independent Observatory of spiritual minorities), it is flagrant that the journalists refuse to question their working method and their lack of critical spirit.

Paul Amar’s lack of knowledge of the subject prevented him, for example, from reacting to the fallacious statements of Georges Fenech who, evoking the particular case of Evelyne Marsaleix, asserted that this young woman had died as a result of the application of care methods derived from the “Grail Movement”. The epilogue of the corresponding legal proceedings invalidated this thesis, as we illustrate in our report on the affair of Doctor Guéniot. But Georges Fenech knows that a rumour tirelessly repeated ends up being accepted, and that no medium will seek to contradict him.

Raphaël Liogier had less speaking time than that granted to Georges Fenech. The format of today’s debates allows only the dominant thinking to express itself, because it can be set out quickly and in terms everyone knows. Any alternative reflection, because it demands more elaboration, will be de facto prevented (see our article Cults, media and single-track thinking).

France 5 - C à dire (8 April 2010)

The presenter of C à dire, Thierry Guerrier, is not at his first performance on the subject of the “cults”, and his adherence to the MIVILUDES’s discourse seems unequivocal (we have had occasion to comment on several of the programmes he has presented: C à dire - 2 October 2008, C dans l’air - 3 August 2009). This 2010 version of the interview with Georges Fenech was nothing but a series of questions supporting the MIVILUDES’s work, completed by a “buzz” of the same type as that of the programme Revu et corrigé. Taking note of the release of the mission’s report, Thierry Guerrier observes that “the work of tracking the cults in France is not about to stop”. “How do they do it, and on what do they prosper today in France?” he asks Georges Fenech, after having adopted as his own the increase from 200 to 500 in the number of cult movements, without seeking to go deeper into what this term covers and how the classification is carried out. Citing the report, the journalist specifies: “What is striking in your report this year is that there are nearly 15,000 children who do not go to school and who are sometimes indoctrinated by gurus”. Thierry Guerrier questions neither the implicit suspicion cast on these children’s parents, nor the “sometimes indoctrinated”, even though he could set these unfounded pieces of information against the testimony of the government departments before the last parliamentary commission of enquiry on the cults in 2006. At the end of the interview, he remarks that over the years the reports follow one another but there is not much progress, and asks Georges Fenech whether he lacks resources. At no moment does the journalist contemplate the absence of progress understood as the natural consequence of the absence of a real problem (as formulated by the MIVILUDES).

TF1 - news bulletin (7 April 2010)

Laurence Ferrari introduced the subject by naming the MIVILUDES the “Interministerial mission for the fight against the cults”, which “calls into question those who have themselves called shamans: charlatans who, under cover of mental purification, swindle those who come to see them”. Apart from the usual confusion among journalists between “dérives sectaires” and “cults”, the journalist even managed, in her introduction, to caricature the mission’s report, since the rapporteurs took care to make a sorting (in the form of a declaration of intent) between the good shamans and those they consider the bad ones. There followed a report in which practitioners of shamanism had the possibility of expressing themselves, the positive point of this report. Nevertheless, this mini-documentary in the form of a “buzz” does not escape the simplifications and the amalgams, and the voice-over commentary took up exactly the argument of the MIVILUDES rapporteurs: 1) The MIVILUDES respects beliefs, 2) nevertheless, certain practices are dangerous, have infiltrated the whole social body and require the greatest prudence, and, 3) as these few prosecution-minded testimonies show. These testimonies are rendered without context, without perspective, generalised and without any adversarial voice. Point 1), which is a facade assertion on the part of the MIVILUDES (see among others our press release on the verbal excesses of Georges Fenech), then weighs very little against the climate of generalised suspicion towards all new forms of spirituality or alternative therapeutic practices, maintained for more than thirty years in France.

Radio

RTL (7 April 2010): Title on the website: “MIVILUDES report: the big cults are not the only ones wreaking havoc”. In a first report, the journalists present the conclusions of the MIVILUDES report and twice give the floor to Georges Fenech, artificially self-justifying their summary of the document. There follow two reports introduced by Vincent Parizot on the community Amour et miséricorde, mentioning “the release of the MIVILUDES report on the cults”. Only the testimonies of apostates or of parents considering themselves wronged are produced. No adversarial voice is presented, the journalists sheltering behind the difficulty of making contact with the group. Thirty years of constant media lynching of the spiritual minorities do indeed make these groups distrustful, but this aspect of the problem does not enter into the journalists’ consideration.

Europe 1 (7 April 2010): Title on the website: “The psycho-groups, new face of the cults”. Marc-Olivier Fogiel interviews Georges Fenech, who presents his latest neologism, the “psycho-groups”, which he will use, let us have no doubt, pejoratively, the better to point at his targets. The “journalist”, not knowing the subject, contents himself with surfing on the classic amalgams. Example: how many people are affected by dérives sectaires? Georges Fenech’s answer: 500,000. The figure is not questioned, nor is what it really covers or the methodology used to obtain it. Marc-Olivier Fogiel asks Georges Fenech: “Today there is no list on which all these cults would appear, it would after all be simpler for all those listening to us; isn’t that a lack, isn’t that a deficiency?”, allowing the president of the MIVILUDES to explain hypocritically that he is not in that logic with his new reference framework. Once again, no distance, no critical analysis from the journalist. Asked by the journalist whether he lacks means of repression against the cults, Georges Fenech replies that he is there to “exercise a watch, not a repression”. Georges Fenech and Marc-Olivier Fogiel do not seem disposed to consider the MIVILUDES’s raids on certain communities, and the media lynching accompanying them, as forms of repression that do not speak their name.

The traditional written press on the Internet

Many sites took up the terms of the MIVILUDES report. No critical analysis was offered, as if the subject were definitively settled, the journalists often adopting as their own the summaries they make of the report (the chosen article titles are also an illustration of this). Examples:

Le Monde: Title: “The MIVILUDES takes alarm at the neo-shamans and fanciful nutritionists”.

Le Monde: Title: “The fight against the cults: a priority?”; on this page, Le Monde announces the LCPAN programme commented on above.

Le Figaro: Title: “Cults: the MIVILUDES publishes its report”; the newspaper takes up the AFP dispatch.

Nouvel Obs: Title: “Cults: the nutritionists and the neo-shamans cause concern”.

Nouvel Obs (Associated Press article): Title: “The New Age puts children in danger, according to the MIVILUDES”.

La Croix: Title: “The MIVILUDES muscles up its fight against dérives sectaires”.

Paris Match: Title: “MIVILUDES: deviances in the name of well-being”.

L’Humanité: Title: “Cult mission: beware of the gurus”. The author of the article, like many other journalists, seems to think that the MIVILUDES fights the “cults”. Note the eye-catching title worthy of the perennial that the theme of the cults constitutes.

Libération: “Title: “Neo-shamans and fanciful nutritionists in the eye of the MIVILUDES”.

Le Dauphiné: Title: “CULTS: alert on neo-shamanism and the pseudo-nutritionists”.

Ouest France: Title: “The blossoming of the small cults”.

La Voix du Nord: Title: “Cults: the MIVILUDES is worried about neo-shamanism and the nutritionists”.

Le Progrès: Title: “Cults: false shamans and true charlatans bewitch the French”. A deliberately eye-catching title to arouse fear.

Médiapart: Title: “The MIVILUDES delivers its annual report”.

Some articles do not content themselves with rendering the report’s content without critical analysis; they add to the MIVILUDES’s conclusions their own comments (in terms often aggressive or lurid, or by giving the floor to other anti-cult protagonists). Examples:

Le Figaro: Title: “Cults: the children parents fight over”; The article cites Me Line N’Kaoua, known for her anti-cult positions, criticising court decisions relating to parenthood (see our commentary on the 2009 MIVILUDES report on the theme “Parenthood and convictions”).

Le Point: Title: “The anti-cult mission denounces the hidden face of nutritional well-being”; this article, in its haste to adopt the MIVILUDES’s conclusions, lends it colourful words it does not use: “The Gaia-galore deviance, ‘New Age’ medicine, and extreme hygienism are however nothing new, as the report recalls”. The article also evokes “the dictatorship of well-being”, which is not an expression used in the report.

La Dépêche: Title: “Guy Rouquet fights dérives sectaires”. Guy Rouquet is the founding president of Psychothérapie Vigilance and took part in the drafting of the MIVILUDES report.