French Freemasonry's grand master targets Catholic private schools ahead of the 2027 election
Guillaume Trichard, grand master of the Grand Orient de France, said schools operating outside state contracts, many of them founded by Catholic communities, "have no place in the Republic." The GODF will publish a white paper with legislative proposals
On September 9, 2026, Guillaume Trichard, grand master of the Grand Orient de France (GODF), publicly revived the long-running tension between French Freemasonry and Catholic education. In an interview with Le Figaro on August 28, Trichard said his organization intends to influence the 2027 presidential election starting with education, and will publish a "white paper on the school of the Republic" containing legislative proposals. He was reelected with 31 of 36 votes at the 161st Convent, held in Bordeaux.
The campaign targets the écoles hors-contrat, or schools without a state contract, private schools that receive no regular public funding and have more autonomy than private schools operating under contract with the state. Officially they are non-denominational, but many were founded by Catholic communities, often traditionalist ones, that chose not to register with the Church to avoid diocesan and state oversight. Trichard said bluntly that these schools "have no place in the Republic." The GODF also said it will publish a manifesto in early 2027 setting out its expectations for France, Europe and the world, covering everything from the rule of law to artificial intelligence.
From discretion to public action
Trichard's remarks mark a shift in the GODF's institutional culture. The organization, which is preparing to mark its 300th anniversary in 2028, has mobilized around 1,400 lodges across the country to hold public events during the election campaign, breaking with the discretion it has traditionally maintained. On August 30, Trichard relit the flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the first grand master to do so.
Trichard also claimed credit for influencing the recent legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide in France. He is the first former grand master to return to the post in 37 years.
How many schools are involved
In the 2025-2026 school year France had 2,557 schools without a state contract, a sector that has grown steadily since 2017. Officially, only about one in six are registered as Catholic with the diocesan authority, but many new Catholic schools choose not to seek recognition from their local bishop to avoid closer supervision. In 2020 the magazine Politis complained that more than three-quarters of the schools funded by the Fondation pour l'école, the movement's main private backer, were in fact Catholic. Several were linked to traditionalist orders such as the FSSP or the SSPX.
Trichard said the GODF is "a fervent promoter of free and secular public education," and recalled the role Freemasons played in the passage of the Jules Ferry laws, which established free, compulsory and secular primary education in France. He warned that schools without a state contract could give rise to "major abuses."
Catholic reactions
Trichard's remarks drew immediate responses from Catholic commentators. Le Salon Beige ran the headline: "the Church of the Republic is preparing its weapons for 2027, in particular against independent education." Writing in Boulevard Voltaire, columnist Gabrielle Cluzel argued that schools without a state contract have become "the school that must be brought down" because they are essentially Catholic. The mention of Islam, she wrote, "is not what worries Guillaume Trichard." Cluzel described these schools as "the intact control sample, spared the great sorcerer's apprentice experiment in teaching" of the national school system.
In July 2025 the GODF joined 24 other secularist and Masonic organizations in a joint declaration against the opening of the Académie Saint-Louis de Chalès, a Catholic boarding school for boys in Sologne backed by the Catholic billionaire Pierre-Édouard Stérin. The declaration argued that the Catholic model of "integral education" amounted to indoctrination. But the regional education authority authorized the school to open in September 2025.
The roots of the "school war"
The GODF itself claims credit for the role it played in building the secular Third Republic (1870-1940) and its education system. In the Affaire des Fiches of 1904, Grand Orient lodges supplied the War Ministry with information on whether army officers attended Mass. Those judged excessively Catholic were classified as "Carthage" and held back in their careers, while Freemasons and republicans were favored. The scandal brought down the government and exposed a "school war" that has never really ended.
In 1984 François Mitterrand's socialist government tried to bring private schools into a single public system through the Savary bill. The plan triggered a demonstration in Paris that drew between 850,000 and 2 million people and forced the bill's withdrawal. More recently, Catholic schools in France have faced closer state scrutiny. A parliamentary report on violence in schools published in July 2025 devoted considerable attention to Catholic schools under state contract, and in December 2025 the Secretariat General of Catholic Education said inspections of those schools had been abusive.
