PARIS, Jan 31: A former French minister and presidential hopeful, Bernard Kouchner, has filed a criminal complaint against the Raelian sect following the announcement on Jan 29 of the birth of a third cloned child, this one in Israel.

Speaking in the name of Ingerence Sante, an association of which he is the founder, Mr Kouchner exclaimed that “the activities of this sect constitute evidently a crime, punishable by 20 years in jail, for the establishment of a eugenic practice that is based on the idea of selection (of the fittest).”

Mr Kouchner, who is also a doctor, university professor and the former French health minister, decided to file the legal complaint because of the Raelian sect’s long-term relations with France, where the sect was founded in 1974 by Claude Vorilhon, a former journalist and race driver.