France steps up struggle against religious radicals

[rug]

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

PARIS | Wed Dec 12, 2012 9:21am EST

PARIS (Reuters) - France will deport foreign-born imams and disband radical faith-based groups, including hardline traditionalist Catholics, if a new surveillance policy signals they suffer a "religious pathology" and could become violent.

A French Islamist shooting spree last March that killed three soldiers and four Jews showed how quickly religiously radicalized people could turn to force, Interior Minister Manuel Valls told a conference on the official policy of secularism.

His warning came two days after President Francois Hollande announced the creation of an agency to track how the separation of church and state is upheld in this traditionally Catholic country with Europe's largest Muslim and Jewish minorities.

Valls and two other cabinet ministers told the conference on Tuesday evening the Socialist-led government would stress the secularist policy called "laicite" that they said was weakened under the previous conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/12/us-france-religion-extremists-idUSBRE8BB0VA20121212

[cbayer]

1. I think they need to beef up their access to psychiatric services.

If pathology is identified, religious or not, then they should treat them.

[snagglepuss]

2. Show me a religious fanatic that would be open to psychiatric help.

Pyschiatrists can't help people who don't think they have a problem.

[rug]

3. Actually, it can.

Mental illness, unlike other illness, is often treated involuntarily on the theory that the person's ability to make informed decisions about care has been eroded by the mental illness.

I've known many "a religious fanatic" that have been successfully treated because their problem was illness, not religious fanaticism.

[cbayer]

4. This is true of many, or not most, people with psychotic illnesses - religious or not.

Psychiatrists can indeed help them, but they generally do not seek help voluntarily.

[Jim__]

5. "The aim is ... to detect .. when an opinion turns into a potentially violent and criminal excess"

A desirable goal, but a difficult line to walk.