In 1989, CCHR discovered that the Ministry of Justice was being lobbied by psychiatrists to suppress a report detailing appalling conditions in psychiatric facilities.

After intense pressure by CCHR and other concerned citizens’ groups, the report was unsealed and the psychiatrists’ nasty secret was revealed: forty-four percent of the nation’s psychiatric hospital patients, many of them elderly, had been unjustly committed. Indeed, nearly half of those had no “mental Statementillness” whatsoever; they had been part of a scheme by members of the mental health industry to fill beds and reap state support. As a result of CCHR’s actions, France’s involuntary commitment law was amended in 1990. Since then, CCHR has continued a vigorous nationwide campaign to strike down all involuntary commitment laws as unconstitutional. A 2001 report issued by the Cour des Comptes (Court for control of public accounting) expressed concern over the increase of forced commitments. As a result of the continuing record of human rights violations stemming from psychiatric institutions, French MPs have sent no less than 25 written questions to the Minister of Health and set up a group to investigate the matter.