Parliament adopts a new offense against “gurus 2.0”

The text creates an offense of provocation to abandon or abstain from treatment, punishable by one year of imprisonment and a minimum fine of 30,000 euros.

On Tuesday April 9, Parliament adopted a bill to combat sectarian abuses, particularly on the internet. As deputies and senators were unable to agree on this sensitive measure, it was the National Assembly which had the last word. It definitively adopted the text with 146 votes against 104. Faced with “gurus 2.0” and their so-called miracle natural remedies against cancer, the bill creates an offense of provocation to abandon or abstain from treatment, punishable by one year’s imprisonment and a fine of 30,000 euros, or even three years’ imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros when the provocation was followed by effects.

Is targeted “provocation, by means of pressure or repeated maneuvers” has “abandon or refrain from following therapeutic or prophylactic medical treatment”when this abandonment “is presented as beneficial for health”while it may have “particularly serious consequences”. In the hemicycle, Secretary of State Sabrina Agresti-Rubache pleaded to fight “against this scourge” sectarian excesses which “Causes thousands of victims each year”.

Reports which doubled between 2015 and 2021

“It is not the government’s intention to ban medical criticism”, “to prevent patients from deciding in full conscience and fully informed to take or abstain from treatment”neither “to pinpoint family or friendly discussions”, she insisted. It thus responded to the concerns expressed in the oppositions, by the Insoumis, communist, Les Républicains and Rassemblement national deputies, who warned of a threat to the “public freedoms” or whistleblowers who criticize the pharmaceutical industry.

The article, rewritten after being deleted, preserves the “freedom of expression” And “the role of whistleblowers”, assured the Renaissance rapporteur of the text, Brigitte Liso. The text also provides for an 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. Brigitte Liso emphasizes that “the number of reports” of sectarian excesses “almost doubled between 2015 and 2021”.