News Flash: France Does Something Right

suri cruise and mother katie moles[3]Looks like French Thetans are reporting to their landing stations today, thanks to a ruling in France that’s forcing the French branch of Scientology (preciously called, “Scientologie”) to pay up to a million bucks in fines.

There were two separate charges of fraud and extortion, filed by two women. One forked over about $40,000 for… well, whatever stupid shit Scientology makes you fork over money for. But the second, I believe, cut to the heart of France’s sense of entitlement:

The second woman said she was forced by the Scientologists to undergo embarrassing tests, and to enroll in courses about the sect in 1998. When she refused she was sacked.

That’s right! Someone kicked a French person out of an organization. No matter that said organization was described as a cult by prosecutors and the judge said members are “plunged into a ‘state of subjection.'” Or that she didn’t even want to be there.

Don’t kick out the French: You’ll always get caught.

Church of Scientology Convicted of Fraud in France [Daily Mail]
19 Comments

wow
if they called it “Scientologie” here I might join.

@Capt Howdy: It makes it sound downright adorable, doesn’t it?

Ha ha ha! Idiots. Even I know you can’t fire anyone in France.

Anything that allows me to work “merde” into a headline tweet is fine by me.

@Jamie Sommers: I love how she thought she could stay but not do anything they make their members do. Did she honestly have NO idea?

I want to know more about the “embarrassing tests”

@Capt Howdy: It probably involved practicing ways to say, “Tom Cruise is not gay.”

wow
I just clicked on the link
was L. Ron really that color?

My hatred for religion and the casualties thereof makes me a bit sympathetic. As long as the religious among us seek to codify their silly ideas, we are in danger. What to do?

Surry is a pretty little girl. Pretty parents will do that.

@RomeGirl:

I never said Tom Cruise was pretty….I said the parents were….

@Capt Howdy: The embarrassing tests are part of the auditing process. You tell your deepest, darkest secrets to the person who is auditing you (while you grab the e-meter), and they keep a detailed record of all you confess. It’s those auditing records they’re holding over members’ heads who would like to leave. Plus, they’re sue happy. But the auditor presses and presses for shameful details, and it’s the fear that those details will become public that keeps most folks in the cult or silent after they leave. By the time they’ve figured out they’ve been hoodwinked, there’s a file a mile long.

France does a lot right, with the exception of continuously electing right-wing governments, which I hope someone can explain.

And yes, I know their psycho right-wingers are analogous to our Demoncrats, but even so, what gives, Frenchies?

@JNOV: Okay, now you’re making me want to stop by that annoying auditor bitch at the Montgomery Street BART station who parks herself by the punk dude who sings Johnny Cash songs (he’s terrific, BTW, rated best busker by some of our local blogs), give a fake name, and tell her the most depraved of Dan Savage reader stories.

@JNOV, @SanFranLefty: I want to see an ex-Scientology celebrity with the balls/ovaries to own up to the kinky shit in their past and be proud of it. After all, no PR is bad PR.

I like how Suri is flipping the bird in that photo.

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