Convicted French Naturopath Continues Practice in Morocco Despite Ban

Moroccans must play the vigilance card. Miguel Barthélémy, one of the most controversial French naturopaths, definitively sentenced on June 1 by the Paris Court of Appeal to two years’ suspended imprisonment for "illegal practice of medicine" and "usurpation of the title of doctor," continues his consultations, offers his services in Morocco, in the company of the highly controversial Irène Grosjean, 92, considered the reference of "raw eating" in France, reveals an investigation conducted by franceinfo. The pseudo-therapist organizes online workshops, but also face-to-face workshops of 5 to 6 days in Guemassa, "45 minutes from Marrakech," as announced on the SantéNaturopathie.com website, which handles the bookings. He who presents himself as a specialist in cellular diseases, including cancer, a "doctor of molecular medicine," and who would have hundreds of patients, teaches the good practices of raw food or tantrism.

Miguel Barthélémy promises "a workshop to change your life," "a workshop to learn to live truly alive," which will be provided for six days in the company of Irène Grosjean and Hervé Bonillo-Darnis. You have to pay 570 euros to attend this workshop, "open to everyone," the price of which does not include meals or accommodation, billed at 170 euros per day and per person, by the establishment called Les jardins de la santé, presented on its website as "a place dedicated to natural health in the middle of the desert," "imagined and realized by a Swiss doctor, Dr. Cyril Gacond." An address regularly presented as a reference by Irène Grosjean.

One of the franceinfo journalists who posed as a patient submitted the content of the consultations to Professor Marie-Laure Joly Guillou, a hospital microbiologist. "This man does not have a coherent and scientific vocabulary of a researcher," she explains. "His discourse on PSAs is terrifying. The treatment itself is an aberration, combining castor oil-based purges and other so-called "vegan" diets consisting solely of raw fruits and vegetables, all to ’cleanse the body,’ a term that comes up constantly in his discourse. Needless to say, this diet leads to malnutrition and weakening of the immune system and the body." She will add: "I have doubts about his scientific knowledge and his diploma, given his discourse. He goes against the values of naturopaths who actually work with anti-cancer centers, but surely not with the same methods. He endangers the lives of these patients by playing on the word naturopath. He manipulates his patients and puts himself in a position of non-responsibility towards his patient."

Octave Franck, the father of Catherine Franck, a Belgian patient of Miguel Barthélémy, who died in 2018 at the age of 39 of cervical cancer, laments: "If this character continues his activities from France, that’s not normal. But in France as in Belgium, justice is powerless against these people. And there are so many cases to deal with. Everyone here, we the parents, his brother, his cousins, everyone tried to make her change her mind, but nothing worked. She was convinced of success. Until the last day, she was convinced that she would get through it. She had lost weight. She weighed nothing anymore. It was incredible the suffering she endured for six months. It’s incomprehensible." Camila, the wife of Charles B., a patient of Miguel Barthélémy who died in December 2018 at the age of 41 of testicular cancer, points to the grip of the pseu