David Miscavige a no-show as Scientology opens ‘Ideal Org’ in dreary corner of Paris

We’re still waiting for Scientology to put out its own press release about yesterday’s party in Paris and make it official, but according to our correspondents on the scene, church leader David Miscavige missed an "Ideal Org” opening only for the second or third time.

He also didn’t show up for the ceremony to open the Berlin Ideal Org in 2007, and we couldn’t find photos of him at the Moscow opening in 2011, and perhaps there’s some logic to that: Germany, Russia, and France have been rather hostile to Scientology over the years, and Dave doesn’t like to take chances. Or something.

Anyway, we have a treat for you today. First up, a report from our great friend Jonny Jacobsen, a British journalist living in France. We asked him how the opening was playing in French media and he was on the scene yesterday to give us his impression.

We’re also adding today’s “Group Therapy” podcast for everyone, which is our weekly discussion for subscribers, and today features a conversation we had last night with Alex Barnes-Ross and Pete Griffiths about their day at the Paris opening, and also, in Clearwater, former Vice Mayor Mark Bunker with his report about the latest land-grab by Scientologists in that seaside town.

We hope you enjoy the podcast and consider becoming a subscriber so you get access to all of the past episodes of Group Therapy as well as those coming in the future. Your support helps us keep this independent news site going.

OK, here’s Jonny’s report…

Well, hip hip hooray, as I believe they say, the Paris Ideal Org is open.

Several hundred Scientologists from around Europe gathered for the inauguration ceremony at Seine-Saint-Denis, just north of Paris and just a handful of protesters — well, at most two handfuls.

It is probably true to say you could count the number of protesters who turned up on the fingers of two hands — albeit from several, different countries including Ireland, England and Switzerland.

But they were probably outnumbered by the journalists who turned up to cover the event — and they were literally queueing up for interviews.

For while most of the Scientologists attending were shy about talking to the assembled camera crews, one former member did one interview after another with the French media.

Ludovic Durand, who quit Scientology around 2007, has until now kept a relatively low profile. He told me he had done one or two interviews in the past with individual journalists.

Saturday, then, was in a sense his media coming-out as he patiently explained to several TV crews, one radio journalist, and at least a couple of print journalists the ABCs of Scientology.

[Ludovic Durand]

And the first media reports are already out.

Broadcaster BFMTV sent their camera crew to the new org the day before opening and did a hidden-camera sequence filming some poor bloke at the entrance suggesting they come back the next day.

They also got a quote from the head of MIVILUDES, the government watchdog monitoring “cultlike activities” expressing his concern. And a spokeswoman from anti-cult group CAFFES warned about the hold Scientology can have over its members.

Rolling news channel France Info also had a report, which consisted mainly of an interview with the vice-president of another anti-cult group UNADFI, warning of the movement’s dangers.

So far as I can see they were not on site Saturday, but they used a photo from Agence France-Presse (AFP) which sent at least one photographer and a video crew. Those photos and the video footage of course will be available to their clients around the world.

And another major radio station, France Inter, based its report mainly on an interview with Durand.

And French daily Le Parisien also did a report Saturday, though that’s behind a paywall.

There will be several more stories coming out in the coming days, very few of them likely to be flattering to the movement. But if the minders intervened to discourage Scientologists talking to the media, it was in part because they know they are on a hiding to nothing in France.

Listed as a cult in one government report and convicted of organised fraud in a 2009 trial (confirmed on appeal), the official line towards Scientology here is hardly friendly — as Bunker regulars will know.

Sure, President Emmanuel Macron had a private meeting with Tom Cruise during his first term as president. And certainly, the authorities are more concerned with the threat of an Islamist attack in the run-up to the Olympics.

But that does not mean that Scientology is viewed with any less suspicion.

And we can expect a string of other reports in the coming days from:

— Le Quotidien, a hip, early-evening talk show presented by Yann Barthès, a kind of French version of Jon Stewart;

— Charlie Hebdo still as in-your-face as ever with its controversial cover cartoons but with plenty of good journalism inside;

— From the conservative daily Le Figaro.

— And reports from at least two other TV stations.

Watch this space.

— Jonny Jacobsen

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Group Therapy 61: Pete & Alex in Paris, and Mark Bunker in Clearwater!

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