[...] Les maçons de droite sont encore plus discrets sur leur engagement que les frères de gauche. C’est ce qu’affirme la journaliste Sophie Coignard dans son livre “Un État dans l’État”. Entretien. On a longtemps associé, à tort, la franc-maçonnerie à la gauche laïcarde. La vérité est bien différente. Sophie Coignard est journaliste au Point. Le livre qu’elle vient de publier est le fruit de longues années d’enquêtes, qui font tomber bien des idées reçues. Certes, on peut classer “à gauche”la principale obédience française, le Grand Orient de France, si l’on se réfère à ce clivage issu de la Révolution. Mais le Grand Orient a séduit aussi des responsables de l’actuelle majorité. Xavier Bertrand, aujourd’hui secrétaire général de l’UMP, expliquait l’an dernier qu’il avait choisi cette obédience en 1995 par souci d’« ouverture aux autres et à leurs idées ».[...] On pense généralement que la franc-maçonnerie recrute surtout à gauche. Vous dites qu’elle est aussi très présente à droite ? Oui, et cela figure parmi les surprises de mon enquête. J’aurais cru, spontanément, qu’il y avait moins de francs-maçons à droite qu’à gauche et qu’ils fréquentaient plutôt la Grande Loge nationale française (GLNF) que le Grand Orient de France (GODF). La première dit avoir « pour fondement traditionnel la foi en Dieu, grand architecte de l’univers », alors que le second est réputé plus à gauche en raison de son attachement à la laïcité répu- blicaine. Je me suis rendu compte que cela faisait partie des clichés. C’est-à dire qu’il n’y a pas moins de francsmaçons à droite qu’à gauche et que tous ne sont pas membres de la GLNF, loin de là ! Xavier Bertrand, ancien ministre des Affaires sociales et secrétaire général de l’UMP, a d’ailleurs révélé l’an dernier qu’il était membre du Grand Orient – tout en assurant qu’il s’était « mis en retrait en 2004 »,ce qui ne signifie pas grand-chose. Inversement, le socialiste Christian Pierret, qui fut ministre délégué à l’Industrie, est membre de la GLNF.
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Sophie Coignard, a French journalist, travels in her last book “Un État dans l’État” in the political connections of Freemasonry and the French state. And seems surprised to find very well known freemasons located on the right of the political spectrum. Probably this dichotomy has some sense in the French political scene but has lack of visibility in global context. Freemasons don't position themselves on the most renowned Obediences because they are from the left or the right. The main criteria basing the option to integrate a regular or irregular Obedience comes from the identification of the candidate to the principles and values that distinguish both Craft. Those who lack any appetence to a spiritual balancing of its material [or profane] life probably review themselves better in the values of the atheist obediences related to the Grand Orients. There is a philosophical and generational explanation for that. French philosophy has influenced the way the intellectuals participate in the debate in the public sphere. A certain disdain for religiosity as a symbol of low class may be identified as common ground of those who adhere to the Grand Lodges and identify themselves with agnosticism and republican values. But this is basically a French phenomenon: to take oaths over the constitution of our mother country is something that the French may regard as basic; but this same ceremony would lack substantial meaning in other latitudes or in other historical and sociological contexts. If there is a primary sense of betterment and individual perfection in the masonic path is, consequently, natural to look for a pattern of elevation in something that is ethereal, esoteric and not specially related to materialism. Because humans perceive their weakness when they acknowledge error, failure, and disrespect. So anyone who has in its soul a quest for the unknown, for the things that the laws of nature and science cannot explain are normally attract for another mode to live freemasonry that we call traditional and theist. A reason for that is that with all the knowledge we have at our disposal in libraries or the Internet is still a dimension of unknown to be pursued and look for. This is the message of freemasonry beyond times and latitudes, to search for something that has been lost in the way of human experience. That explanation may be the reason why, in the time of space discoveries and genetic manipulation, of unlimited information Men free of good report are attracted by the values and a Brotherhood of Men named freemasonry. Most of them, of mature age, have experienced in other circles promises of friendship and solidarity. But all the promises were betrayed or veiled. That is something that Sophie Coignard could not understand in her very interesting book about freemasonry and the political sphere. Freemasons don't deny the need for political identification and citizen partisan engagement; but they let it to each one of them. They don't feel Brethren because they are of the left or the right, or they review themselves in Stalin or Le Pen. Freemasons most probably dislike both because of the hatred they have for freemasonry. But it is not the issue.
