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Will France Ban Scientology?
Five years after Tom Cruise called Nicolas Sarkozy a “wonderful guy,” a French court convicted his church of fraud. Eric Pape on Scientology’s latest crisis.
Scientology isn’t a religion, it’s a dangerous sect overseen by convicted criminals—at least as far as France is concerned.
There is no doubt that the last week has brought a flurry of bad news for Scientology. There was the vocal defection of respected film director Paul Haggis, as well as fresh indications that John Travolta, one of Scientology’s two celebrity pillars, is diverging from church orthodoxy. And then there were ongoing repercussions from the two-part Nightline report touching on abuses by Scientology’s leader David Miscavige the previous week. (The church’s spokesman Tommy Davis stormed out during an interview.) But the real blow came from a Parisian judge: After an extensive investigation into tactics, actions, and leadership, the court concluded that the French branch of Scientology is just short of a criminal enterprise.
Jean-Pierre Brard claimed that Tom Cruise and John Travolta donated $10 million to Scientology, which he equated with a brainwashing structure that bears similarities to Stalinist Russia and North Korea. “It is a diabolic system.”
The judge ordered L'Association spirituelle de l'Église de Scientologie-Célébrity Centre to pay a total of $900,000 in fines for fraud (specifically, for being involved in an "organized criminal scam"). Among the numerous sentences handed out, Scientology’s French leader Alain Rosenberg was given a two-year suspended sentence and a $45,000 fine. Two things kept the judge from banning Scientology outright: a recent change in the law that made it impossible to ban an organization over fraud, and because he believed doing so would drive the organization into hiding and make it more difficult to monitor. A French representative of Scientology told reporters that she believed that the courts were under pressure as part of a “modern Inquisition,” and French Scientology’s attorney Patrick Maisonneuve has promised to file an appeal of last week’s decision.
• Kim Masters: Scientology’s New Face Obviously, this isn’t what French Scientologists were hoping for when Tom Cruise, in 2004, made a high-profile visit to then-Minister of Finance Nicolas Sarkozy and his then-wife Cecilia at the sprawling Seine-side ministry. (“What are you doing here,” a bemused Sarkozy said in French to a laughing-too-hard Cruise.) In that informal chat, Cruise encouraged Sarkozy to perceive Scientology with the sort of tolerance that it garners in the U.S., where it is classified as a religion (not a sect)—before Cruise boarded a police boat toward the heart of Paris. That night, on France’s highest-rated prime-time television news show, Cruise lauded the future French president, saying, “I find that he is just a wonderful guy.”
It is unclear how seriously Sarkozy took his Hollywood-Scientology encounter, but when he was the minister of the interior (France’s top law-enforcement position), he suggested that his energies were better focused on concrete crimes, rather than people’s religious or spiritual beliefs—as long as they don’t harm others. Sarkozy has certainly seemed to be more tolerant of Scientology than a host of French judges, which is a bad sign for Maisonneuve.
Last week’s decision was yet another affirmation of French legal tradition. Courts here have repeatedly pounded Scientology, including its global founder, L. Ron Hubbard, who was sentenced to four years in prison for fraud in 1978. (Hubbard was convicted in absentia but never served a day in prison.) In 1997, a French court convicted the head of Scientology in Lyon for fraud and involuntary homicide after the suicide of a Scientologist. Two years later, five more Scientologists were convicted of fraud in Marseille, while Scientologists in Paris were convicted of spying on former members. But these latest verdicts were not merely condemnations of rogue employees, as were past convictions, they hit at the way that Scientology has acted in France.
John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
There She Is, Miss Botox
Eric Pape has reported on Europe and the Mediterranean region for Newsweek Magazine since 2003. He is co-author of the graphic novel Shake Girl, which was inspired by one of his articles. He has written for the Los Angeles Times magazine, Spin, Vibe, Le Courrier International, Salon, Los Angeles and others. He is based in Paris.
The Corruption Scandal Gripping Paris
Eric Pape has reported on Europe and the Mediterranean region for Newsweek Magazine since 2003. He is co-author of the graphic novel Shake Girl, which was inspired by one of his articles. He has written for the Los Angeles Times magazine, Spin, Vibe, Le Courrier International, Salon, Los Angeles and others. He is based in Paris.
Carla on the Couch
Eric Pape has reported on Europe and the Mediterranean region for Newsweek Magazine since 2003. He is co-author of the graphic novel Shake Girl, which was inspired by one of his articles. He has written for the Los Angeles Times magazine, Spin, Vibe, Le Courrier International, Salon, Los Angeles and others. He is based in Paris.
Bravo! Prosecute those crooks! France is yet again a role model for the rest of the Western world!
Hopefully France will outlaw Scientology, and then maybe something will be done here about this "cult". This country has upwards of at least 2,000 "cults" that hide behind "Freedom of Religion". Time to start looking at their tax exempt status, and other illegal activities, like holding members against their will (aka kidnapping).
" Hopefully France will outlaw Scientology,
and then maybe something will be done here about this "cult". "
Aren't all organized religions "cults,"
adhering to fictional accounts of the " TRUTH, "
made-up and written by men
. . . thousands of years ago before scientific FACT ?
Since then, it's been determined The WORLD IS ROUND,
and seriously, how could Moses possibly part the Red Sea
with his staff, and honestly could Noah really fit all
those animals on a boat ?
Could we have a little common sense, Please ?
People can be spiritual, that's their choice if it gives
them comfort, but don't tell the rest of us we'll go
" somewhere dark and evil " if we don't believe in " YOUR GOD. "
It's 2009. Time to catch up.
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I think perhaps this lack of religion gives them sobriety of the mind, which lacks in overzelously religious countries/communities.
It is shameful what we in the US allow to be churches.
Here a minister can fly in his private jet some poor foreign country to give $50 to an orphanage and turn it into a promotional photo-op. Then he shows the emotionally wrenching photos and video to people back here and gets thousands of dollars in donations. Then he basks in his pool at his mansion.
France audits churches. They have to show what they bring in and what they give out. There can be no forced donations for classes.
In the US scientology has used the freedom of religion and the legal system to bully and intimidate its critics.
I hope this is step one in their global death.
where is all the love for scientology in these comments? anyone? anyone?
I love Scientology...
... being exposed for what is it: A commercial enterprise hiding being a religious veil to shield itself from accountability that comes from making fraudulent claims regarding what it sells.
Perfect.
People on the outside know little about it but the fact that it's so secretive and defensive says a lot.
Full public financial disclosure should be a compulsory demand to be granted the right to be a tax free "Church".
Don't good Catholics "donate" large sums to their churches on a regular basis? And don't Mormons tithe ten percent of their earnings to the church? When new lands were discovered, weren't the Catholics one of the first groups to follow in an effort to save the indigenous people (and profit off their resources). Don't most "recognized" churches still send their believers out into third world countries on "missions" (in an effort to turn the local population to their religion? What makes those churches any different from the Big S? Numbers. Recognized religions have obtained enough "money and power" to "influence" politicians in an effort to suppress the smaller religions.
A religion is known as a cult until it becomes big enough and popular enough to be know as a religion. Just like Christianty was known as a subversive cult when it first started, as well as the LDS and many other religions, when they first started. If the cult never becomes big enough and popular enough, it remains to be seen as a cult.
(No, I don't belong to the Big S.)
The willingness of a significant number of people to put themselves into the hands of criminal Scientology leaders is just another reminder that fully one-half of people are below average in intelligence. That is true also of the drivers who share the highways with you. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
They sell a galvanometer - $5 at Radio Shack - for $5,000. Oops, I mean E-Meter.
It's a criminal enterprise, nothing more. And some of their members were convicted of practicing medicine without a license, when a woman had a breakdown and died. They prevented her from going to the ER, because they are opposed to psychiatry.
Hubbard was a SciFi writer, who made good.
this is much a religion as all the others; it's not!
"Religions" that coerce confessions so that when a member leaves, they can use those sessions against said member are despicable. If the catholic church used confessions in the way that Scientologists use audits, they'd be defined as a cult too. The fact that Haggis was so worried that his audits would come to light and embarrass him in some fashion says a lot about how they keep their members in line.
Be fair. People are free to believe in men from space or a man who walked on water. That's why it's called 'faith.' But I can convert to Catholocism, Judaism, Buddhist, Islam, Shinto or any other legitimate religion and not have to buy classes that reveal dogma to me on a pay-as-you-go principle. Scientology sells education. That's all well and good, but it's not a religion. It's a business. And it needs to be taxed as such.
France should ban Scientology.
So should every other nation on earth.
It's a crock. A dangerous one at that.
Islam should be banned too in France and in every other nation of earth. It's dangerous.
ban islam? why single it out? because some crazy people have done horrible things in its name, or discriminated in its name? none of the other religions have done that...
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