Hold the front page !! It's Stifani again !!
Hold the front page !! It’s Stifani again !!
Our self-proclaimed spiritual guide, Honorary Consul for Djibouti in Marseilles, Air Bongo frequent flyer, recipient of unsolicited correspondence from the Elysée Palace and EX- Grand Master of the GLNF has made it into the papers again.
François Stifani’s favourite journalist, François Koch of L’Express give him a full page serve in this week’s issue. link
GLNF , Justice is the Master
Never seen before. On February 5th 2000 opponents to the Grand Master of the GLNF, membership 44000 Brothers, met in the Paris region for a demonstration of force. The crisis within the 2nd Obedience in France has all French freemasonry trembling; virtually without a head the GLNF has been placed under court administration. On January 24th the Supreme Court of Paris named as temporary court appointed administrator of the GLNF, Maître Monique, legal liquidator and administrator, thereby recognising the complaints of François Stifani’s adversaries. The Grand Master has been contested for over 14 months but, opinionated, he clings to his gilded throne.
It is an irony of history that the courts have taken control of an Obedience where numerous members have already been in their clutches, particularly in the South East of France. Recruitment generally targeted professionals who sometimes confused business with wheeling and dealing. So the other Obediences wish to put some distance between themselves and the Brothers of the Coast. Nine of them, notably the Grand Orient of France called a press conferenbce for January 19th: “The GLNF is reducing freemasonry to political problems and questions of money and business deals ,” states the discreet Alain-Noël Duhart, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of France. The spiritual guide of the GLNF is accused of seeking recognition from the President of the republic. The most striking testimony ? Two years ago, in a letter sent to the Head of State, François Stifani stated he was in total agreement with Nicolas Sarkozy. Who wrote back thanking him for his “resolute support”. Stifani dared reply that the letter attributed to him was a forgery and that he had received no reply from the Elysée Palace. Which convinced no-one. Last year the two general assemblies organised by Stifani were fiascos. At the first, in the Spring, he found himself in a minority position; the second, held in the Autumn, was annulled by the courts on the grounds of irregularities. The Paris Court has ordered François Stifani to call a third general assembly with his own dismissal on its agenda. Unable to resolve himself to do so, Stifani has resigned as president of the board of administration, non-masonic title of the Grand Master. It is this vacancy at the top which convinced the court to name and administrator.
Will she put this Masonic Obedience back on the rails ? It won’t be easy. For the statutes of the GLNF have been drawn up to maintain the power within the hands of those who already have it. “The objective is to create a consensus around a providential man.” explained François Stifani. In fact, a sovereign grand committee, whose members are designated by the Grand Master, elect the candidate to the grand Mastership. A choice that the general assembly can only accept…or refuse to ratify. Which is what would happen no doubt if François Stifani was proposed to succeed himself. The crisis can only endure and probably deepen.
In all fraternity. François Koch