The Minister of National Education alerted to mindfulness meditation workshops in colleges

They split a letter to the Minister of National Education. About fifteen associations and unions alerted Jean-Michel Blanquer to “mindfulness meditation” workshops carried out, according to them, in several colleges. The signatories of this open letter, made public on Tuesday January 18, specify that a project to experiment with this meditation technique “proposed by an esoteric lobby” was abandoned following protests issued in June 2021.

Corn “we have been seized by its reappearance in a made-up way since September in several colleges with the multiplication of relaxation workshops, breathing exercises, meditation”, note these organizations. Among them are the Human Rights League, the Education League, the FSU, CGT and Unsa unions, the FCPE parents’ federation and the association for the fight against sectarian aberrations Unadfi.

Mindfulness meditation (MPM), which has its origins in Buddhism, is based on focusing on your sensations, your breathing, a point on your body, etc. It was the subject of 22 requests for information between 2018 and 2020 from the Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and the Fight against Sectarian Aberrations (Miviludes). At the same time, 12 reports concerning minors and relating to the various meditation practices were received by Miviludes, according to its latest report.

For the signatories of the letter to the Minister of National Education, “the practice on minor children of a method which can lead to a conditioning with loss of critical spirit and subjugation of the individual generates (…) significant risks which cannot be neglected”. “We renew our deepest concerns about these experiments, and ask you to intervene to put an end to them without delay” in order to refuse in national education “a technique, MPC, with uncertain and potentially risky consequences on the psychological development of children”, they write.