NANTES, France (Reuters) - The guru of a tiny French doomsday sect under police suicide watch says his group looks forward to voyagers from Venus collecting them before the world ends on October 24.
Arnaud Mussy, 36, on Wednesday denied any plans for a mass suicide, dismissing parallels that police and the press have made between his New Lighthouse sect and the Order of the Solar Temple cult.
That group was active in France, Canada and Switzerland and saw 64 members die in two collective suicides in 1994 and 1995.
Police in the Atlantic port city of Nantes have kept the six-member New Lighthouse sect under surveillance since one member committed suicide and two others attempted to after an earlier deadline for the world's end passed on July 11.
"We're not suicidal at all," Mussy, standing at the door of the sect's tightly shuttered house, told Europe 1 radio in his first interview after days of rising media interest.
Asked if they were really waiting for extraterrestrials to sweep them off to Venus next month, he replied: "Sure.
"It will be just like going to Angers or Lyon," he said, referring to two French cities. "It's an exchange. They come to us, so we should go to them. That's all."
Mussy, a public relations specialist who says he will be Christ and his twin brother the pope in the new life they expect to lead on Venus, denied pressuring the man who killed himself in July and blamed the other death bids on a "chain reaction".
Europe 1 described Mussy as casual, suntanned and charming.
Police and justice authorities in Nantes say they cannot ban the sect or break it up because it has done nothing wrong.
At least 30 tiny apocalyptic sects are active in France. Anti-sect groups have kept up calls for official action before any further New Lighthouse members attempt suicide.
"I'm afraid that these people are so weak that they could be pushed to the same extremes as in July, especially when the non-event of October 24 passes," said Dominique Hubert of the anti-sect group ADFI.
"I think we should act now before there are other catastrophes. This is a case of failing to help people who are in danger."
Mussy's mother made a desperate appeal to her son on French television on Monday. "I ask them to stop all this," the mother, who was not identified, said. "These things have gone too far. They could endanger other people's lives."
Police said they were alerted to the sect this year when neighbours noted strange behaviour on a farm commune of 21 people. "At their meetings, they wore capes and held spiritual seances," one officer said.
The sect lost many members when the world did not end in July as Mussy had predicted. The remaining faithful later moved into their current two-storey residence near Nantes university.