The trial in Grenoble, in the French Alps, will mainly focus on the deaths of 16 cult members, including three children, whose charred bodies were found, laid out in a star pattern, in December 1995 in a remote French alpine forest.

"I have come before my judges because I have done absolutely nothing wrong," said Tabachnik, the only defendant in the first trial aimed at the cult.

The French judge who investigated the deaths believes two cult members drugged and shot dead the 14 others before setting themselves and the bodies on fire in a forest clearing known as the Well of Hell.

Lawyers for some of the victims’ families allege all 16 were killed and set on fire by other sect members who fled the scene. One of the relatives said his lawyer would ask that the trial be postponed because he believes the perpetrators are still at large.

Prosecutors accuse Tabachnik, an internationally known orchestra conductor, of playing a leading role in the sect and inciting cult members into suicide pacts.

"This trial is a pretext for the justice system to show that it is fighting sects. Michel Tabachnik is being prosecuted for his opinions," said Francis Szpiner, one of his lawyers.

The conductor, 58, admitted he once had links to the sect but has denied that he was one of its leading figures. He has insisted that he knew nothing about any of the cult’s mass suicides, which led 74 members to their deaths in Europe and Canada between 1994 and 1997.

French police, however, have said that cult members described Tabachnik as a key member. Police have a photo showing him during a cult ceremony, wearing a white cape decorated with a cross. His name appeared on a list of 600 cult members found in a chalet in Canada that was burned during a 1994 mass suicide.

If convicted, Tabachnik faces up to ten years in prison and a fine of a million francs.

"He is a scapegoat for prosecutors who need a trial. There has already been an investigation in Switzerland and he was not indicted," Caroline Toby, another of his lawyers, said.

Members of the Order of the Solar Temple believe that "death voyages" by ritualised suicide lead to rebirth on the star Sirius. They think the world will end in fire and that they must die by burning in order to reach the afterworld.

Dozens of witnesses will testify in Grenoble about the history of the sect, which was founded in the early 1990s by Joseph Di Mambro, a Frenchman, and Luc Jouret, a Swiss national. The sect is now believed to be dormant.

Mr Di Mambro and 22 cult members died in a mass murder-cum-suicide in Cheiry, Canada, in October 1994. Mr Jouret died in similar circumstances later the same month, along with 24 others - including Tabachnik’s first wife, Christine - in Salvan, Switzerland.

Ten others died in Canada in separate group suicides, in Morin Heights in September 1994 and Saint-Casimir in March 1997.

Tabachnik, a specialist in contemporary music, is also a composer. His career has been on hold since he was placed under investigation in 1996.

He was a member of the Golden Way, a group founded in 1978 by Mr Di Mambro that was the precursor of the Solar Temple sect.