The former Grand Master of the Grand Orient of France (2000-2003), the criminologue Alain Bauer, has announced his resignation on the occasion of the annual general meeting of the most important freemasonic obedience, i.e. on the "convention" which takes place under exclusion of the public and which was opened in Paris on Thursday, the  1th September. 
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In a letter being published on Friday, the 2nd September, he calls on for the "revolt of the lodges" against obediences which are exhausted in "a controversy of persons, of clans and of structural contradictions, which are oppressive". 
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On Saturday, the 3rd September, there must be appointed the successor of Gérard Papalardo, who has been the administrator of the Grand Master office since the 1st April, because Bernhard Brandmeyer who had been elected on the last convention had resigned formerly.  Mr. Papalardo wished to run for Grand Master by election by the Order’s Council (a board of directors that consists of 35 members who will be elected by the convention). 
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But more candidates have entered the scene : Daniel Morfouace, Jean Michel Quillardet and the actual “Grand Secretary", Hugues Leforestier. In order to solve the crisis, some delegates intended to let elect the new Grand Master according the “general right to vote” directly by the 1,200 members of the convention …
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[Le Monde]

This year the Grand Orient of France celebrates a birthday.  It remembers of a phase of his history, which it clearly had marked:  not the hundred-anniversary concerning the law of the separation of Churches and State, its important contribution for the layicism, rather the tenth return of its disastrous convention of 1995. 
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For the first time in its history apart from periods of conflicts or accusations, the annual general assembly did not arrange agreements, rather it sent back the complete Order’s Council in order to renew itself at the base.  Here a careful work of reconstruction will be necessary what has been presented by Jacques Lafouge, Philippe Guglielmi and partially by myself in order to provide the oldest and most important French Masonic obedience with stability.  While such combats of clans and of apparatschiks devastate the freemasonic landscape in France, the lodges work further imperturbably with much effectiveness and have dialogues with the society. 
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But since end of 2003, the communication cycle seems disturbed and the exponents of the freemasonry controversial : After the common successes of the French freemasonry  -  that considerable impact which made visible the work of the lodges by finding the way into the legislation in favour of the liberty of research in bio ethics or the right to die in dignity  -,  the system which lets vegetate the lodges surfaced again. 
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Beside the quarrels of men concerning the size and color of ribbons  - i.e. a delirium that sometimes shakes survivors of the unfortunate political or social experience processes  -,  thousands of engaged, honest and serious men and women, brothers and sisters often have been taken into a kind of captivity as a hostage, if they dared to scrutinize the illusionary power.  This [ "power" ] forgets that freemasonry receives believing and disbelieving ones and that it must permit personal, mental and symbolic research as well as a social commitment and citizens in a cocktail which should be drinkable for  everyone, so that they all are not locked up in a cube which is blocked in the depth of catacombs.

Freemasonry always was a fight for individual and political liberty :  Freedom of the press, freedom of opinion, freedom of reunion, freedom of association, general right to vote, abolishment of slavery, layicism.  The Grand Orient was church and party of the republic(ans) and it became the motor of the democratic civic society :  "Franc-Maçonnerie" [ freemasonry] rhymes with "democracy". 
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But the crisis of the Anglo-Saxon freemasonry which rapidly decreases regarding its personnel existence, seems to connect itself in the few dynamic countries (France, Belgium, Iceland) with a crisis of the content which cannot be ignored, if we do not want to experience the same behavior phenomenon in the coming years. 

France is rich by its pluralism of trends, by the multiplicity of its obediences, by the wealth of its cultural assets, by the strength of its female and mixed freemasonry.  But the pleasing health regarding its personnel existence that more and more became sensitive for the step into the new millennium, cannot not mask the missing discipline in the common presentation and the lack of operational readiness in the important debates of the society. 
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Certainly, numerous freemasons are active in order to advance the society.  But less and less is it possible to intervene together.  How can one be lucky in his lodge, if one is unfortunate in his obedience?  In the course of twenty five years I tried with the assistance of numerous brothers and sisters to develop the Grand Orient of France and the freemasonry. 
Some isolated successes cannot be sufficient in order to ignore the inertia, the paralysis, the hesitating regarding changes of the reality. 
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From all that I drew the conclusion on the convention, which was held since Thursday [ 1th September 2005 ] in Paris, by withdrawing from the Grand Orient of France.  I wish that this decision is a signal, so that the lodges from now make use of their right of property of their obediences by finally freeing themselves from the quarrels of persons, of clans and of structural conflicts by which they had been oppressed. 
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While the acacia, symbol of the renewal in the Masonic mythology, seems to have withered, it yet remains the only possibility to let it revive again :  to give the lodges the possibility of introducing the required renovation.  Sometimes we can mix the colors of the dusk with the gloss of morning redness: This is the time to begin the morning and to ring in the noon  -  it is the time of the work. 
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Alain Bauer