PARIS (AFP) – French judges fined the Church of Scientology almost a million dollars on Tuesday for fleecing vulnerable followers but stopped short of banning the group from operating in France.

Scientology's Celebrity Center and its bookshop in Paris, the two branches of its French operations, were ordered to pay 600,000 euros ($900,000) in fines for preying financially on several followers in the 1990s.

Alain Rosenberg, the French leader of a movement best known for its Hollywood followers Tom Cruise and John Travolta, was handed a two-year suspended jail sentence and fined 30,000 euros on the same charge of fraud.

Five more Scientologists were give fines ranging from 1,000 to 20,000 euros for fraud or the illegal practice of pharmacy.

France regards Scientology as a cult, not a religion, and has prosecuted individual Scientologists before, but this case marks the first time the organization as a whole has been convicted.

Founded in 1954 by US science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, the Church of Scientology is recognized as a religion in the United States and claims a worldwide membership of 12 million.

But officials in France, Germany, Greece, Russia and elsewhere accuse it of tricking vulnerable members out of large sums.

The French ruling marks a new chapter in a global battle over the group's image, one that forced Wikipedia to block known Scientologists from editing entries at the communally-crafted online encyclopedia earlier this year.

"We will not give up," the movement said in a statement after the verdict. "We believe that no one has the right to tell the French people what to think and what to believe on matters of religion."

"Religious freedom is in danger in this country," declared Celebrity Centre spokesman Eric Roux after the verdict, urging France to recognize a movement that claims 45,000 followers in the country.

The Church of Scientology said it was the victim of a politically-motivated "witchhunt" and its lawyer Patrick Maisonneuve announced he would appeal.

But a statement from the group also said the court, by stopping short of an outright ban, had acknowledged that "there is a large community of Scientologists who are happy to practice their religion".

The Paris case followed a complaint by two women, one of whom says she was manipulated into handing over 20,000 euros in 1998 for Scientology products including an "electrometer" to measure mental energy.

A second claims she was forced by her Scientologist employer to undergo testing and enroll in courses, also in 1998. When she refused she was fired.

The Scientologists were ordered to publish the Paris court's ruling in half a dozen newspapers and magazines in France and abroad.

A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Olivier Morice, welcomed "a historic decision" that would help "future victims to be warned about the methods of Scientology".