In France, Miviludes is a sub-agency of the Ministry of Interior, dedicated to fight against what they call “cults”, which encompasses a large variety of well accepted abroad new religious movements as well as alternative medicine practitioners or even dissident political eco-movements.
As reported by the French online journal Religactu, in its report of 2021, in which Miviludes is supposed to take stock of “sectarian aberrations” (“derives sectaires” in French, which could also be translated as “cultic deviances”) in France, whatever they call that way, the agency published a chapter about a religious community named “La Famille” (The Family), a community born in the beginning of the 19th Century from Jansenist believers.
One sub chapter of the report was entitled “Sectarian aberrations observed within dissident branches”, and was talking about a Kibbutz located in the Center of France, the Kibbutz of Malrevers, a community that left “the Family” during the 1960s.
The members of the kibbutz did not like being accused of being a cult with “sectarian aberrations” and filed a complaint against the Miviludes, referring the matter to the Administrative Court of Paris.
The kibbutz maintained, through its lawyer Marc Bensimhon, that: “the contested decision is vitiated by an error of assessment because, on the one hand, the characterization of the Malrevers kibbutz as a cult is totally unfounded, as no member of the kibbutz is under anyone’s control; each person has free will and freedom of opinion and expression; furthermore, Miviludes has no tangible evidence to support its claim that the Malrevers kibbutz is a cult; it has not received any reports from individuals or administrations; it has not made any observations or analyses before making such serious accusations…”
Miviludes, in a pathetic defense, tried to argue that none of her accusations had any “significant effect” on the community or are not “likely to significantly influence the behavior of the persons to whom they are addressed”. If what they write have no effect, why do they write it? That’s another question.
The court decided otherly: “It is clear (…) that the paragraphs concerning the kibbutz of Malrevers (…) of the activity report for the year 2021 (…) do not mention precise, substantiated and documented elements likely to establish that the kibbutz presents the characteristics of a sectarian aberration according to the definition given by Miviludes. The title preceding these paragraphs, entitled ‘Sectarian aberrations observed within dissident branches’, is thus not based on any element appearing in these paragraphs or in other paragraphs of the activity report for the 2021 Miviludes activity report that would justify the characterization of the Malrevers kibbutz as a cult. As a result, the title chosen to introduce the paragraphs in question, insofar as it includes the words ‘the sectarian aberrations observed’, is illegal and must be removed.”
This is the second conviction of Miviludes by the French courts in less than a year. In July 2024, Miviludes had been convicted for having lied in its report about the Jehovah Witnesses.
In its judgment of 2024, the court had reiterated “that it is incumbent upon MIVILUDES, in the exercise of its mission of exchanging and disseminating information, to respect the obligations of balance, impartiality and neutrality incumbent upon any administrative authority and, in particular, to refrain from publishing erroneous, untruthful or defamatory information in its annual report.”
Bad times for the infamous agency.
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First published in this link of The European Times.
