French start to smash guru statue

A French police officer, right, orders a Mandarom sect member to climb down the giant statue

CASTELLANE, France -- French police have begun to demolish a giant concrete statue of a cult leader built illegally in the hills of the Alps.

But the huge effigy of the founder of the Golden Lotus cult, which has towered over the small village of Castellate in southeastern France for more than a decade, won a day's reprieve when the statue proved too tough for the explosives experts.

Authorities insist it never had planning permission and must be knocked down.

Security forces had cleared the cult's hilltop headquarters at dawn on Wednesday and explosive experts laid charges to destroy the sculpture of sect founder Gilbert Bourdin, otherwise known as His Holiness Lord Hamsah Manar.

But the area's local government prefect said they had not been aware of how tough the iron reinforcements in the base of the monument were, and detonation was postponed.

"We won't be able to go ahead with the demolition of the statue today. It will be destroyed tomorrow afternoon," Bernard Lemaire told journalists.

Workers prepare for the destruction of the statue

Cult followers have compared the planned demolition of the 33-metre (110-ft) high statue, erected in 1990, to the Afghan Taliban regime's destruction this year of colossal 1,500-year-old Buddhist statues.

A former teacher from the French Caribbean island of Martinique, the now-deceased Bourdin founded the Mandarom cult in 1969. Followers are strict vegetarians who wear loose-fitting tunics and keep their heads shaved.

A 1996 French parliamentary report said the group had engaged in "insidious recruitment" practices and cited a police investigation of rape accusations brought against Bourdin by five former cult members.

France began cracking down on religious sects in recent years in response to groups such as the Order of the Solar Temple, which lost 74 members in mass suicides in France, Switzerland and Canada between 1994 and 1997.

The French government passed a law this year that increases the country's judicial arsenal against sects. The law makes it easier for courts to disband sects that have committed abuses.

As police arrived at the compound early on Wednesday to carry out the court order, one member of the cult scrambled to the top of the statue to protest against its destruction.

Bringing him down "required some gymnastics and a lot of attention on our part," prefect Lemaire said. Other believers scuffled with police and shouted in protest.

Cult President Christine Amory slammed the demolition as "state terrorism" and said her members were outraged. But she added they were pacifists and would not get violent.

While the number of cult followers has dwindled to about 400, from around 1,200 at its height, the colourful holy city has become a major tourist attraction, drawing thousands of curious visitors each year.