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...defendants in the case that began May 25. When investigating magistrate Jean-Christophe Hullin filed the findings of a nine-year inquiry with prosecutors, he described Scientology as "first and foremost a commercial business" whose interactions with followers are defined by "a real obsession for financial remuneration." The church's bookstores and celebrity center were described by Hullin's investigation as instrumental in ensnaring psychologically fragile people "with the goal of seizing their fortune by exerting a psychological hold." (See pictures of Paris...
...Scientology officials in France have denied the allegations, saying the two women - like all Scientology members - were free to participate in or walk away from treatment and other church activities as they pleased. They and their lawyers also point to what they say is a history of official French hostility to their movement - including its inclusion in a 1996 government list of dangerous cults. As contrast to the organization's ostracism in France, Scientology leaders note that their church has the same status as a legitimate religion in Spain, Slovenia and Hungary as it has in the U.S. and Canada...
...Though allegations that Scientology bleeds members dry is neither new nor limited to France, some outside observers may agree with Gounord's claims of French intolerance toward religion. France's 1996 list of dangerous cults, for example, contains 172 groups, including Jehovah's Witnesses, Hare Krishnas, the Worldwide Church of God, the Unification Church and even transcendental meditationists - all of whom have largely shed their cult status...
...beliefs or practices that may be involved. The first time that happened, in 1978, a Paris court found Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard guilty of vulgar fraud. In 1997, a Lyon court convicted five Scientology officials of similar charges, which were linked to the suicide of a debt-ridden church member. That verdict came with fines and a suspended prison sentence...
...this trial, which is expected to last until mid-June, prosecutors are likewise trying to portray Scientology as merely a large-scale scam while ignoring the organization's religious conceits. Now a country that constantly wrestles with the separation of church and state will find out just how far it's willing to go to keep the two apart...