Since the Age of Enlightenment, France has upheld clear constitutional guidelines that protect human rights and religious freedom. Today, however, intolerant attitudes and discriminatory practices towards unconventional faiths have become acceptable and even institutionalized in public life. This book offers an examination of France's most stigmatized new religions, or sects, and the public management of religious and philosophical minorities by the state. The book tracks the mounting government-sponsored anticult movement in the wake of the shocking mass suicides of the Solar Temple in 1994, ... More

Since the Age of Enlightenment, France has upheld clear constitutional guidelines that protect human rights and religious freedom. Today, however, intolerant attitudes and discriminatory practices towards unconventional faiths have become acceptable and even institutionalized in public life. This book offers an examination of France's most stigmatized new religions, or sects, and the public management of religious and philosophical minorities by the state. The book tracks the mounting government-sponsored anticult movement in the wake of the shocking mass suicides of the Solar Temple in 1994, and the negative impact of this movement on France's most visible religious minorities, whose names appeared on a “blacklist” of 172 sects commissioned by the National Assembly. Drawing on extensive interviews and field research, the book describes the controversial histories of well-known international NRMs (the Church of Scientology, Raelian Movement, and Unificationism) in France, as well as esoteric local groups. The book also reveals the partisanship of Catholic priests, journalists, village mayors, and the passive public who support La Republique's efforts to control minority faiths—all in the name of “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity”.