Scientology suffers a major legal defeat in France

Today witnessed a major setback for the Church of Scientology in the form of a conviction in a legal case which, for the first time, finds the church itself, and not just its members, guilty of organized fraud and other charges, according to Flesh & Stone's correspondent in France, Michael Cosgrove.

The Church of Scientology and several of its members had been charged with various offences involving fraud and deception concerning several individuals who were judged to have been subjected to practices aimed at extorting them of their money, as reported earlier on Flesh & Stone.

Four church leaders received suspended prison sentences ranging from 10 months to 2 years, and two others were fined €1,000 and €2,000 respectively for the roles they played in the fraud.

Those sentences are severe enough, but the most surprising judgements concerned the Church of Scientology itself, which, for the first time in France, was sentenced along with its members. The church was ordered to pay fines of €600,000 ($900,000) and the Scientology Library was fined €200,000.

In a particularly humiliating judgement, the church and the library were ordered to prepare and issue, at their own cost, press releases containing the judgements in their own publications, the French press, and international press outlets.

The long term implications of this judgement are infinitely more important however than the sentences handed down by the court.

There have been several court cases involving the Church of Scientology in France over the last 10 years, but this one has been followed assiduously by both press and public alike due to the fact that the prosecution demanded the dissolution of the Church of Scientology’s operations in France during the sentence recommendation phase of the trial.

The church escaped that fate because a sudden change in French law meant that dissolving the church was no longer possible. That law change was highly contested by many as being a manipulation of legislators by the church.

This sentence, however, although it doesn’t mean the end of the church’s activities, represents the beginning of a concerted legal attack against the church itself.

Many analysts here in France concur that the church faces a bleak future. The combination of the trial, which was held in one of the country’s most experienced courts, the gravity of the charges, and the fact that the church itself was found guilty, are unprecedented, and the fact that the whole trial has been widely followed spells danger for the church and its recruitment campaigns.

This judgement means, quite simply, that the French are largely predicted to become much more wary of the Church of Scientology and its methods, having read how (negatively) they have been described in the media.

It also signifies that government and other watchdogs that are involved in the effort to rid France of what are called “sects” are going to be much more aggressive in their surveillance of what has become an organization which is now considered to have its back against the wall.