# Jehovah's Witnesses in France

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In 1906 the Bible Student movement registered its first congregation in France. Following a dispute of the movement's leadership in 1917, the segment of the movement that remained associated with the Watch Tower Society became known as Jehovah's Witnesses in 1931. In 1995 the French government included Jehovah's Witnesses on its list of "cults" (the "blacklist"), and governmental ministers made derogatory public statements about the denomination. France's Ministry of Finance then opposed official recognition of the denomination, but on June 23, 2000, France's highest administrative court, the Council of State, ruled that Jehovah's Witnesses qualify as a religious denomination under French law.
After Jehovah's Witnesses were blacklisted, members faced discrimination in their private and public lives. State administrations took measures to marginalize the denomination and treat it differently from mainstream denominations. For the years 2006, 2009, 2017 and 2023, the United States Department of State reported cases of authorities interfering with Jehovah's Witnesses preaching activities, cases of physical attacks, and one death. The French government attempted to levy high taxes on the denomination.

## Beginning of the 20th century

Jehovah's Witnesses had been present in France since the beginning of the 20th century, and during the first half of this century, they were the subject of occasional accusations by the Catholic Church, the only institution really committed to denouncing sectarianism. This criticism became less clear at the same time as criticism of the sects intensified in the mid-1970s. For a time, the Witnesses were not even considered as a sect by these opponents, before becoming so again in the 1990s.

## World War II

Prior to World War II, the French government banned the Association of Jehovah's Witnesses in France, and ordered that the French offices of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society be vacated. In October 1939, "about six weeks after the beginning of the war", the organization of Jehovah's Witnesses was banned in France.
In that period they suffered severe persecution and some were executed, as for example in eastern France, many Jehovah's Witnesses were sent to concentration camps because of their religious beliefs and their refusal to support the war, which conflicted with their neutral stance. François Hankok was transferred to the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp in November 1947. Jehovah's Witnesses, such as Simone Arnold Liebster were restricted before and after the Nazi occupation and children in schools were pressured to make the "Heil Hitler" salute through punishment. Swiss pioneer Werner Schutz had been arrested and deported from France for his missionary activities there. After the war, Jehovah's Witnesses in France renewed their operations.

## Blacklisting and defamation

Since the Jehovah's Witnesses were classified as a sect, they began to be persecuted by state authorities, and the civilian population also demonstrated its rejection of them, and acts of vandalism have even been committed. T.L. Early and A.B. Baka report that "A veritable press campaign attacking the Jehovah's Witnesses, who had been subjected to an avalanche of negative and detrimental articles (some 700 recorded between 1996 and 1999) and comments simply because they had been listed as a 'dangerous sect'".

### The blacklist in the Gest-Guyard report

On 22 December 1995, the newly formed Parliamentary Commission on Cults in France, by the French National Assembly, published a report also known as the Rapport Gest-Guyard (Alain Gest and Jacques Guyard). On 10 January 1996, the Parliamentary Commission labeled Jehovah's Witnesses and some 172 other groups as "sectes", and compared them to "criminal associations". The Gest-Guyard report made, among other recommendations, that tax laws should be enforced to control, suppress and eliminate dangerous sects in France.
According to James M. McCabe, the report of the Parliamentary Commission on Cults is based largely on hearsay, rather than legal character, but the report is widely cited to list groups and label them as "dangerous cults". Yves Bertrand believed that Scientology and Jehovah's Witnesses do not deserve to be diabolized and "to put on the same level some companies of thought and genuine cultic movements that alienate the freedom of their members, the result is the opposite of the desired goals".
On March 21, 2000, the Justice Court of Paris found Jacques Guyard, one of the main author of the controversial parliamentary report against sects guilty of defamation for having called Anthroposophy a cult practicing "mental manipulation". He was fined, and his parliamentary immunity removed in connection with this case.

### Anti-cult and secular activism

In 1998 Jean-Pierre Brard was sued by the Jehovah's Witnesses; Brard had been one of the leading actors in the French state's attempt to control the group. He was sued for claiming that the group was responsible for many suicides; it was ruled that though the statement was defamatory it did not constitute "religious bias", resulting in his acquittal. He was sued again by them in 2006, after Brard said their denial of blood transfusions resulted in people's deaths, that they did not pay taxes, and that they covered up serious in-group crimes; this was ruled defamatory but as the statement was deemed to have been made in "good faith" he was again acquitted.
On December 18, 2002, the Court of Appeal of Versailles reversed a decision by a lower court and convicted Jean-Pierre Brard, and the director of publication of the magazine 15-25 ans, of libeling the Jehovah's Witnesses. The court ordered that a communiqué drafted by it be published in the magazine 15-25 ans as well as in a national daily paper and that the defendants pay €4,000 to the Christian Federation of Jehovah's Witnesses. The verdict related to a September 2001 report on sects published by magazine 15-25 ans, where Brard accused the Jehovah's Witnesses of employing the same methods as international criminal organizations. The deputy appealed the verdict to the Court of Cassation, which confirmed the conviction of Jean-Pierre Brard but canceled that of the director of publication.

### MIVILUDES

The United States Department of State reported:
   [The French] Government has a stated policy of monitoring potentially 'dangerous' cult activity through the Inter-ministerial Monitoring Mission against Sectarian Abuses (MIVILUDES). … In 1997 the special prison at Strasbourg for Jehovah's Witnesses for refusing conscription was still active. In January 2005, MIVILUDES published a guide for public servants instructing them how to spot and combat 'dangerous' sects. … The Jehovah's Witnesses were mentioned"
Jehovah's Witnesses appealed on March 6, 2022 against MIVILUDES for publishing "defamatory passages" against them, in which it uses expressions such as “sectarian aberrations” and stated that although only 2% of the complaints made involve Jehovah's Witnesses, MIVILUDES devoted almost 20% of its 2021 report to them. The Jehovah's Witnesses also claimed that MIVILUDES has made "unsubstantiated and defamatory claims" against them and that its 2021 report "failed to follow basic scientific methodology and is not supported by any authoritative scientific works", and "unlawfully stigmatizes the more than 136,000 peaceful citizens of France who are Jehovah's Witnesses". On July 14, 2024, Jehovah's Witnesses won the case and the Paris administrative court ordered the state to pay them €1500.

## Taxes

The association of Jehovah's Witnesses have lost and won court cases regarding their tax-exempt status, specifically concerning action on the part of the government of France to imposed a retroactive 108% tax on all donations received to the organizational body of Jehovah's Witnesses in France, and/or a 60% tax on incoming donations.
In January 1996, the authorities initiated an exhaustive official audit to find faults in order to fine the 'Association les Témoins de Jéhovah'; the audit took 18 months (more than 1 year which is the normal statute), but found no corruption in the handling of donations.
In 1999, the country demanded back taxes on donations to the religious group's organization from 1993 and 1996, which would have been €57.5 million.
On October 5, 2004, the Court of Cassation—the highest court in France for cases outside of administrative law—rejected the Witnesses' recourse against taxation at 60% of the value of some of their contributions, which the fiscal services assimilated to a legal category of donations close to that of inheritance and subject to the same taxes between non-parents. In the case of two local associations of Jehovah's Witnesses, the Council of State, the supreme court for administrative matters, ruled that denying the legal status of associations cultuelles on grounds of accusations of infringement of public order was illegal unless substantiated by actual proofs of that infringement.
France's Ministry of the Interior sought to collect 60% of donations made to the denomination's entities; Witnesses called the taxation "confiscatory" and appealed to the European Court of Human Rights.
   "Jehovah's Witnesses awaited a ruling by the ECHR on the admissibility of a case contesting the government's assessment of their donations at a 60 percent tax rate. The government had imposed the high rate relative to other religious groups after ruling the group to be a harmful cult. If the assessed tax, which totaled more than 57 million euros (approximately $77.5 million) as of year's end, were to be paid, it would consume all of the group's buildings and assets in the country."
   "France's highest court of appeal, the Cour de cassation, has handed down its decision in a case between the Association Les Témoins de Jéhovah, a not-for-profit religious association used by Jehovah's Witnesses in France, and the national tax department, the Direction des services fiscaux. Following a tax inspection lasting 18 months, the tax department established that Association Les Témoins de Jéhovah, whose sole revenue consists of religious donations by its adherents, was run in a completely benevolent fashion, and that its activities were not commercial or for profit. Nevertheless, the tax department levied a 60-percent tax on the religious donations made over a period of four years, between 1993 and 1996. … This is the first time in their 100-year existence in France that Jehovah's Witnesses have been taxed in this manner. … Furthermore, this tax has not been imposed on any other religious organization in France. The Association Les Témoins de Jéhovah has decided to institute proceedings against this confiscatory taxation before the European Court of Human Rights."
In Association Les Témoins de Jéhovah v. Direction des Services Fiscaux challenged the denial of tax-exempt status for Association Les Témoins de Jéhovah, the not-for-profit corporation used by Jehovah's Witnesses in France. Religious associations (“associations cultuelles”, the legal status defined by the 1905 law on the Separation of the Churches and the State) in France can request exemption from certain taxes, including taxes on donations, if their purpose is solely to organize religious worship and they do not infringe on public order. According to the French tax administration, tax-exempt status was denied because:
   The association of Jehovah's Witnesses forbids its members to defend the nation, to take part in public life, to give blood transfusions to their minor children and that the parliamentary commission on cults has listed them as a cult which can disturb public order.
On June 30, 2011, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) unanimously ruled that France's imposing a retroactive tax for the years 1993 and 1996 had violated Jehovah's Witnesses' right to freedom of religion under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The ruling marked the first time France was found in violation of article 9.
The tax ruling was overturned by the European Court of Human Rights on June 30, 2011. On July 5, 2012, the ECHR ordered the government of France to repay €4,590,295 in taxes, plus interest, and to reimburse legal costs of €55,000. On December 11, 2012, the government of France repaid €6,373,987.31 ($8,294,320).

## Pressure to quit their jobs

James M. McCabe reports that in six different states "they had lost their employment as day care specialists due to being Jehovah's Witnesses". The French Department of Social Welfare has been frequently pressured by letters not to renew the contract of Jehovah's Witnesses who have worked there on the grounds that "their adherence to the faith of Jehovah's Witnesses does not allow to guarantee the safety, the morality and the conditions of educacion of the children in their care".

### Ministry of Education

Maryline Bouchenez and Catherine Guyard, both elementary school teachers, after almost 20 years of service, were forced to transfer to other schools because of their religious affiliation with Jehovah's Witnesses. McCabe also reports that numerous Jehovah's Witnesses "lost their employment specifically due their adherence to their religious beliefs".

#### A PhD student

Gerard Gertoux, a PhD student in archaeology and history of the ancient world at the Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée, Lumière University Lyon 2, elaborated his thesis Les conjonctions dans l'antiquité comme les éclipses: approche scientifique d'une chronologie absolue (HCL TM 104 at the MOM library) under the supervision of Pierre Villard, and the defense of the dissertation with the six jurors was scheduled for December 2007. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and Human Rights Without Frontiers report that Gertoux is a victim of religious discrimination in France because for September 2007 the defense was canceled, when the university becomes aware of Gertoux's religious affiliation. Pierre Villard tried to support him by personally recommending his thesis for transfer to another university. The Coordination des Associations & Particuliers pour la Liberté de Conscience informed that Daniel Bodi of the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO) agreed to supervise Gertoux's doctoral thesis in 2009, but the INALCO refused to accept him as a transfer, even though he received the agreement of a research director and two of his original jurors. Human Rights Without Frontiers informed that "on 10 February 2011 the Administrative Court of Paris (Dossier n°: 0918003/7-3) refused to validate his complaint to religious discrimination". The Coordination des Associations & Particuliers pour la Liberté de Conscience says that Gertoux is "an example of the influence of MIVILUDES and the black list" and adds that MIVILUDES "has indoctrinated everyone against minority movements" and to all government ministries including the ministry of education, which is responsible for the management of the universities.

## Kouchner's law

On March 4, 2002, Kouchner's law was accepted in the health system, which makes it possible to ignore the willingness of Jehovah's Witnesses to refuse a blood transfusion, to receive a treatment containing one of the main components, or to request an alternative treatment to transfusion.
The Kouchner Law has given full authorization to medical personnel to disregard the wishes of the patient or the patient's parents to receive medical treatment. The Administrative Court of Lille noted that the Public Health Code states that no medical intervention can be performed without the patient's consent, but also recognized that it was the duty of physicians not to respect the patient's will when her life was in imminent danger.
Other court cases have concerned the rights for patients, or of minor patients' legal guardians, to refuse medical treatment even if there is a risk of death. For example, in a 2001 case, doctors at a French public hospital who gave blood products to a patient with an acute kidney injury were found not to have committed a mistake of a nature to involve the responsibility of the State.
The Council stated that "there does not exist, for the doctor, an abstract and unalterable hierarchy between the obligation to treat the patient, and that to respect the will of the patient," concluding that faced with a decision to treat patients against their will, doctors do not have a legally predefined obligation to treat the patient, nor do they have a legally predefined obligation to abide by their wishes. One year later, after the adoption of the Kouchner Law on patients' rights and quality of the health system, the Council of State recalled that not respecting the patient's wishes violates his individual freedom, but the doctor did not commit a fault if under extreme conditions he performs an intervention "necessary and proportionate to its state" in order to try to save the patient's life.

## Child custody

In no less than 11 divorce cases, Jehovah's Witness mothers were denied custody and in one case even visitation rights.
In a child custody case following a divorce, a woman was denied custody of her children outside of holidays for various reasons, including her membership of Jehovah's Witnesses; the court of appeals of Nîmes considered that the educational rules applied by the Witnesses to their children were essentially inappropriate because of their hardness, their intolerance, and the obligation for children to practice proselytism. The case went before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which ruled that the court should have based its decision on the mother's actual handling of her children and not on abstract, general notions pertaining to the mother's religious affiliation.

## Vandalism towards Jehovah's Witnesses

Vandalism targeting these places of worship began after Jehovah's Witnesses were added to the list of sects released by the Parliamentary Commission in 1995. Jehovah's Witnesses in France have reported hundreds of attacks against their adherents and places of worship, and intimidating or sending threatening letters. Over the last 25 years, hundreds of instances of vandalism have been documented. In 2009, the United States Department of State states:
   "According to representatives for the Jehovah's Witnesses community, there were 65 acts of vandalism against the group in the country through December including Molotov cocktails aimed at Jehovah's Witnesses' property. … According to the leaders of the Jehovah's Witnesses community in the country, there were 98 acts against individuals for 2006 and 115 acts in 2007."

## Prohibition of its publications

In December 1952, France's Minister of the Interior banned The Watchtower magazine, citing its position on military service. During the ban of The Watchtower in France, publication of the magazine continued in various French territories. In French Polynesia, the magazine was covertly published under the name, La Sentinelle, though it was later learned that The Watchtower had not been banned locally. In Réunion, the magazine was published under the name, Bulletin intérieur. The ban was lifted on November 26, 1974.

## Opposition to the construction of their meetings

Since the parliamentary report in which Jehovah's Witnesses were called a "dangerous" sect, they have had difficulty building their kingdom halls. Hervé Machi reports that many distressed mayors constantly ask him if they have the prerogative to refuse the building permit application of an association for the worship of Jehovah's Witnesses. Increasingly, the French authorities in Lyon are refusing to allow Jehovah's Witnesses to rent facilities despite the fact that they have been meeting for more than 20 years. Numerous French towns have refused to issue building permits and in nine cases have been prevented from building Kingdom Halls, leaving them to meet in old halls or in the homes of individual Jehovah's Witnesses.
In 1999, the former mayors of Beuvillers and Sainte-Hélène refused planning permission for places of worship.
On November 6, 2002, the Auch court of large claims ordered the dissolution of an organization that had been explicitly created to prevent Jehovah's Witnesses from constructing a place of worship in Berdues. The court found that the organization's goal was to "hinder the free exercise of religion".
On October 17, 2002, the administrative court of Orléans annulled a municipal decision issued by the mayor of Sorel-Moussel, which granted him the preemptive right to purchase a plot of land that the local Jehovah's Witness community had intended to buy and use for the construction of a house of worship. The court considered that the mayor had abused his right of preemption, since he exerted it without having an urbanization project prior to preemption.
On June 13, 2002, the administrative court of Poitiers annulled a municipal decision issued by the mayor of La Rochelle, which refused the use of a municipal room to the Jehovah's Witnesses on grounds that the Witnesses were listed in the 1995 parliamentary report; the court ruled that, while a mayor may refuse the use of a room for a motive of public order, the motive that he used in this case was not a motive of public order.

## Refusal of representatives from the Jehovah's Witnesses as prison chaplains

Following a lengthy administrative procedure initiated by Jehovah's Witnesses, on October 16, 2013, the Council of State condemned the refusals of the French administration to accept the religious ministers of Jehovah's Witnesses as prison chaplains, explaining that the detainees "may exercise the religion of their choice, in accordance with the suitable conditions for organising the premises, within solely the limits imposed by security and good order in the institution". According to the French Ministry of Justice, by 2015 Jehovah's Witnesses had 111 chaplains for their own service in prison.