Georges Fenech, the strongman of the governmental agency, lives with a Spiritualist medium. We are told his deceased former lover promoted their union from the spirit world.
by Massimo Introvigne
The MIVILUDES (Mission interministérielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les dérives sectaires, “Interministerial Mission for Monitoring and Combating Cultic Deviances”: note that the French “secte” and its derivative words should be translated into English as “cult” and not as “sect”), is a controversial French governmental agency that singles out movements it regards as “cults” or as guilty of “cultic deviances” and promotes their repression. Among its numerous targets are energy healers, magnetizers, and those who claim they may help with physical and psychological problems by talking with the spirits of the deceased (i.e., Spiritualist mediums). One who promotes these practices, according to the MIVILUDES, “in many cases has all the features of a guru” (dans bien des cas possède toutes les caractéristiques du gourou), a word that in the language of the Mission does not have the honorable original Indian sense but designates a sinister “cult leader.”
MIVILUDES’s strongman, or at least one often presented as such by French media, is former magistrate and politician Georges Fenech, once the chief of the Mission and now a member of its Orientation Council. He is a controversial character. Fenech once went to Crimea to applaud Putin for his illegal annexation of that Ukrainian territory. More recently, he breached the law by failing to pay what he owed Scientology after having lost a court case against it. He had to suffer the humiliation of seeing a bailiff access his bank and taking the money forcibly from his bank account.
Or perhaps “Bitter Winter” has been too harsh with Fenech and MIVILUDES. It seems they have a soft, romantic side, too. From July 2021, Fenech “shares his life” (she is sometimes called by the French media his “wife” but more often his “partner”) with a woman who goes by the name “Marie Fenech.” She was previously known as “Séverine Trouban” (or Séverine-Marie Trouban). She is from Terrehault (Sarthe), and in 2022 Fenech told the local media “I’m particularly happy to have chosen Terrehault as my secondary residence, where my partner Séverine Trouban is with all her family” (Je suis particulièrement heureux d’avoir élu résidence secondaire à Terrehault auprès de ma compagne Séverine Trouban et de toute sa famille).
Why are we interested in Trouban who, unlike Fenech, looks like a kind and pleasant person? There is a reason. Trouban is a Spiritualist medium, more exactly a “magnetizing medium” (médium magnétiseuse). She used “Marie” as her professional name as a medium and when she participated in the French version of the reality show “Temptation Island.” However, even after she became Fenech’s partner and started using the name “Marie Fenech” she kept introducing herself as a “médium magnétiseuse” and publicly giving advice by phone on psychological problems and relationships. In fact, she said that “once I preferred not to mention my gift as a medium, but today I embrace it” (mon don de médiumnité, je n’en parlais pas mais aujourd’hui je l’assume).
Actually, the story is even more interesting. It seems that the union between Fenech and the medium has been organized by the spirits themselves. As Marie (or Séverine) tells the story, “I left the Sarthe to come and work in Paris, and before I left I spoke to [the spirit of] a deceased friend. I asked her: ‘From up there, don’t you want to put someone in my way so that I can finally be happy. I’m having such a tough time emotionally.’ I leave and in the evening, I’m not in the mood. I’m in a guinguette and a friend says to me: ‘You should sit here; this gentleman is very interesting.’ He was with a friend. I fell in love! Something happened between us, and we left hand in hand. We arrive at his place, and I say to him: ‘You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I spoke to my dead friend, and I feel that with you, it’s not like usual. It’s soothing, it’s deep, it’s going to last. And I tell him that my friend is Hermine de Clermont-Tonnerre, she died in a motorcycle accident. Faced with this revelation, George Fenech turned pale. And with good reason: he was Hermine de Clermont-Tonnerre’s very last companion before her death on July 3, 2020” (J’ai quitté la Sarthe pour venir travailler à Paris et avant de partir j’ai parlé à une amie décédée. Je lui ai demandé : ‘De là-haut, tu ne veux pas mettre quelqu’un sur mon chemin que je sois enfin heureuse. Je galère tellement sentimentalement’. Je pars et le soir, je n’ai pas le moral. Je suis dans une guinguette et une amie me dit : ‘Tu devrais t’asseoir ici, il est très intéressant ce monsieur’. Il était avec un ami. J’ai un coup de cœur ! Il se passe un truc entre nous et on repart main dans la main. On arrive chez lui et je lui dis : ‘Tu vas me prendre pour une folle, mais j’ai parlé à mon amie décédée et je sens qu’avec toi, ce n’est pas comme d’habitude. C’est apaisant, c’est profond, ça va durer’. Et je lui dis que mon amie est Hermine de Clermont-Tonnerre, elle est décédée d’un accident de moto. Face à cette révélation, George Fenech est devenu tout blême. Et pour cause, il a été le tout dernier compagnon d’Hermine de Clermont-Tonnerre avant sa disparition le 3 juillet 2020).
We are thus told that a crucial development in the life of Georges Fenech was arranged by the spirit of his deceased lover Hermine. In other word, a medium encouraged a man to make a long-lasting change in the most private sphere of his life by reporting a message from the spirit world. Obviously, he did not recognize any manipulation or “cultic deviance” here.
I am a scholar of religions, and my research is based on the principle of methodological agnosticism. I am not arguing that the spirit of Fenech’s former lover did not appear to Séverine-Marie (nor that it did appear: how could I know?). I am not even arguing that “magnetizer-mediums” are not talking to the spirits of the deceased, nor that they cannot give to their clients valuable advice for a fee. I have nothing against Spiritualist mediums, magnetizers, and healers. But MIVILUDES does. Or do Spiritualist mediums threaten French’s secular rationalism with their “guru-like attitudes” and “dérives sectaires” only if they are not in a romantic relationship with a MIVILUDES leader?
On the other hand, in this story there is also an element of hope. If Fenech and the MIVILUDES would start receiving information on religious movements from the spirits rather than from anti-cultists such as those of FECRIS and UNADFI, there is a serious possibility that the quality of their reports may improve.
