Laure Manaudou: why is the swimmer’s new activity, singled out by the observatory of sectarian aberrations, causing controversy?

After a busy summer on France Télévisions covering the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, French swimming champion Laure Manaudou already has her sights set on a new project: that of becoming a kinesiologist. This is in an interview given to Current Woman that she announced this new stage of her life. But what exactly is kinesiology? Inspired by Chinese medicine, this alternative practice would be a psycho-corporeal rebalancing technique. “How to manage in a group, how to help people psychologically is something that fascinates me” explains the swimmer.

If inesiology is recognized in several countries, notably Anglo-Saxon countries such as Canada for example, in France, the practice does not benefit from state certification. Worse, this activity is even in the sights of the Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and the Fight against Sectarian Abuses (Miviludes).

“Mental grip”

The French gendarme of sectarian abuses warns on its site against this practice. It highlights the risk of “mental control” over the patient by a therapist “self-proclaimed after unapproved training with various contents, duration and costs”.

The radicalization of certain kinesiologists is illustrated in particular by a conviction in France in 2005, following the death of an infant named Kerywan, victim of malnutrition due to an unsuitable diet. Parents, guided by ideological conceptions linked to kinesiology, had adopted a strict vegan diet for themselves and their children, in their quest for a supposedly purified diet.

In June 2023, the order of doctors also warned against the sectarian excesses of these unconventional medical practices such as aromatherapy, lithotherapy and… kinesiology.