“Giving health advice is not trivial”: The anti-sectarian abuse law also targets the Catalan guru Casasnovas

Thierry Casasnovas le gourou catalan du crudivorisme s'est fait connaître par ses vidéos. DR

Faced with the increase in reports of sectarian abuses, the government is strengthening its repressive arsenal with a new law. Two new offenses are created: provocation to abandon or abstain from medical treatment and psychological subjection, namely control. The associations are pleased, while reservations on freedom of conscience and expression arise. The new law targets in particular the man who calls himself a naturopath, Thierry Casasnovas, based in the P-0 and subject of several hundred reports to Miviludes which sees its status reinforced.

Thirteen years to the day after his first video and eleven months after his eight indictments, notably for “illegal practice of medicine” and “abuse of weakness”, Thierry Casasnovas, the guru of fasting and raw food from the Pyrénées-Orientales, remains more than ever in the eye of the storm of the authorities.

Because, coincidentally, the government has decided to sanction sectarian abuses even more firmly.

Since Tuesday, February 13, the bill strengthening the legal arsenal against these phenomena has been presented to the National Assembly by the Secretary of State for Citizenship Sabrina Agresti- Roubache (read below).

It should be adopted this Wednesday, February 14 evening. With, in particular, its article 4 creating the new offense of "provocation to the abandonment or abstention of medical treatment". The justification for such a law: responding to the spectacular increase in the number of reports to Miviludes (Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and the Fight against Sectarian Abuses).

That is, in its latest report, more than 4,000 reports recorded for the year 2021, a jump of 33.6% in one year, of which not far from 800 concern the sector of the medicine.

"The health crisis was a catalyst"

"The health crisis constituted a catalyst through a proliferation of new actors mastering the web and its codes, knowing how to control minds, by exploiting fears, loss of bearings", wrote the president of Miviludes.

Who targeted Casasnovas, a champion of raw foodism with controversial comments, particularly on the effectiveness of chemotherapy. Today, the Catalan is leading a crusade on social networks against Miviludes and Unadfi (National Union of Family Defense Associations) despite his strict judicial control.

His latest video with a provocative title – "Can we cure cancer with vegetable juice ?" – has just been deleted from her YouTube channel for incorrect medical information.

And if he unleashes himself in this way and dreams of being a herald of alternative therapists, it is in particular because this law concerns him directly, through this article 4 on the offense of provocation to violence. ;rsquo;abandonment or abstention from care. Or even article 1 which provides for an offense of “psychological subjection”, that is to say control.

A victim under the influence of Casasnovas' videos: “I was fragile, I could have ended my life”

Thierry Casasnovas has been indicted since March 10, 2023 for eight preventive offenses (illegal practice of medicine and pharmacy, abuse of weakness or deceptive commercial practices).

A victim interviewed by Miviludes and heard as a witness by the investigating gendarmes, recounts for the first time his nightmare experienced in 2016 to midilibre.fr.

A student between Hérault and Gard, she was treated for a specific pathology. A friend then told her about the guru's videos on social networks.

"I was fragile, but when you're not well, helpless, you take what you can, she tells us. "His speech touched me, he seemed to be suffering like me, there was something personal in his way of approaching health."< /em>