“Gurus 2.0”, “conspiracy sphere”… The “scourge” of sectarian excesses is in “constant evolution” and deserves “to adapt our law”, underlined the Secretary of State for Citizenship and the City Sabrina Agresti -Roubache (City), at the opening of debates on the examination of a bill aimed at strengthening the fight against sectarian aberrations, initiated on Tuesday February 13 by the National Assembly.
The Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and the Fight against Sectarian Abuses (Miviludes) “warns about the miracle solutions proposed by certain pseudo-therapists against cancerous pathologies, such as mistletoe injections” or “lemon juice”, he said. she indicated in the hemicycle.
The National Assembly, however, defeated the government by opposing the creation of a new offense of “provocation to the abandonment or abstention of care or to the adoption of practices of which it is clear that they expose the person to a serious or immediate risk to their health.” In this bill, “provoking the abstention or abandonment of care” would be punishable by one year in prison and a fine of 15,000 euros. At the very end of the evening, the deputies, like the Senate, deleted this most controversial article from the text. A coalition of oppositions rejected the article by 116 votes to 108.
“Provocation to abandon care” is “when a sick person is encouraged [NDLR : par un manipulateur] to abandon his treatments, repeatedly and intentionally”, explained on point Brigitte Liso, the Renaissance rapporteur of the text. “It is an innovative provision which constitutes a major step forward in the fight against therapeutic abuses of a sectarian nature,” she indicated during the examination of the text on February 7 in the Law Committee. The offense “responds to the dissemination of techniques specific to sectarian abuses in the field of health, a phenomenon which is taking on particular importance on social networks,” she added.
The interest of this article 4, according to the MP? “Filling a real gap in our arsenal by equipping ourselves with effective means of combating therapeutic abuses of a sectarian nature.” In the Law Committee, Brigitte Liso gave two examples of these abuses: the “promotion of the exclusive consumption of vegetable juices to treat cancer” as well as “the promotion of total fasting which would cure diseases while drugs would kill the body”.
Whistleblower Irène Frachon invoked
Elected officials from the majority, the government and socialist deputies tried in vain to save the measure, to protect the “victims” of “charlatans”, these “people who advise with great emphasis and techniques to stop treatments “medical.
On the left, the rebellious Jean-François Coulomme denounced this “too vague” offense, which “threatens our freedoms”, for example for “criticizing pharmaceutical abuses”. Several parliamentarians from both the left and the right invoked the whistleblower Irène Frachon and her decisive role in the Mediator affair. LR and RN also insisted on the defense of “public freedoms”, in the face of Macronist elected officials accusing them of reviving the debates on the health pass, or even of resuming arguments from opponents of vaccines against Covid-19. Several deputies also recalled that the Council of State, in a notice dated November 17, 2023, considered that “neither the necessity nor the proportionality of these new incriminations have been proven”. The controversial measure is not buried, however, pending the continuation of the parliamentary shuttle.
The start of the discussions went off without a hitch for the presidential camp. Unlike the Senate, the Assembly validated a new offense of placement or maintenance in a state of “psychological subjection”, in order to better understand the “specificities of sectarian influence”, according to the government. “We wish to act upstream of the abuse of weakness by sanctioning the very fact of subjecting a person by serious or repeated pressure, or by techniques capable of altering judgment,” explained Sabrina Agresti-Roubache.
A sharp increase in the number of reports of sectarian abuses
This bill also establishes as an aggravating circumstance the abuse of weakness committed by means of a digital or electronic medium, the penalties being increased from three years of imprisonment and a fine of 375,000 euros today to five years of imprisonment. imprisonment and a fine of 750,000 euros if the proposed law comes into force. This text also intends to protect minors with extended limitation periods.
Renaissance rapporteur Brigitte Liso underlined that “the number of reports” of sectarian abuses “almost doubled between 2015 and 2021”, with 4,020 recorded in 2021. There remain around thirty amendments to be examined this Wednesday, at first reading.