France: Membership of the Largest Masonic Jurisdictions

by Christopher Hodapp

For those interested, the always informative (and lively) French-language Masonic news site Hiram.be  (actually based in Belgium) has a recent article with current membership statistics from the eight largest Masonic obediences in France. (See the pie chart above.)

The original article is at: Les effectifs des obédiences françaises en 2026

I'll freely admit to a long interest in what goes on concerning Freemasonry in other countries, with a particularly soft spot in my brain for French Masonry. I've often quipped that if you lock three French Freemasons in a closet and wait for an hour, they'll bust out and angrily form at least six new grand lodges. Over the course of my 27 years in the fraternity, I've been variously told that France has at least a dozen – and likely more – very different grand lodges of any appreciable size at work, even though our US grand lodges only recognize one. They have grand lodges (or grand orients) requiring a belief in Deity, and some that welcome non-believers (often referred to as a doctrine of 'freedom of conscience'); some that are centuries old, and some younger than a decade; some for men only, women only, or both; some that were started merely because of an internal schism over personalities, over philosophical issues, or both. And there are combinations of all of these. Which is why you have to burst out in hysterical laughter whenever conspiracy mongers in France rail against 'The Freemasons™' there. There's no way to classify them in a monolithic sense, apart from, perhaps, wearing aprons in meetings.

The reason I bring it up is to show the layout of the French Masonic landscape and how it differs from what we mostly encounter in the U.S. The article concerns the eight biggest, and "most effective" grand governing bodies in that country.

Out of a total of 171,914 Masonic members nationwide, the breakdown is interesting:

• Grand Orient de France (GOdF): 54,448 (32%) [male/female; no faith required]
• Grand Loge Nationale de Française (GLNF): 33,889 (20%) [male; faith required]
• Grande Loge de France (GLDF): 30,446 (18%) [male; faith required]
• Federation Française du Droit Humain (DH): 14,500 (8%) [male/female; no faith required]
• Grande Loge de l'Alliance Masonnique Française (GL-AMF) (a recent breakaway from the GLNF): 14,495 (8%) [male; faith required]
• Grand Loge Feminine de France (GLFF): 13,027 (8%) [female/no faith required]
• Grande Loge Mixde de France (GLMF): 4,845 (3%) [male/female; no faith required]
• Traditionnelle et Symbolique Opéra Grand Loge (GLTSO): 4,600 (3%) [male/female; faith required]

In case you're keeping score, it works out that about 51% of French Masons are not required to have a belief in deity. That doesn't make all 86,000 of them atheists, it just means acknowledging a personal belief in a Supreme Being is not a requirement. Which seems curious concerning a fraternity that bases its rituals around the Old Testament story of constructing the most sacred temple on Earth which housed the revealed Word of God. But it takes all kinds to make a world. France is a very different country with a VERY different history than us mere upstarts over here. (When Chinese Premiere Zou Enlai was asked by Richard Nixon in 1972 what he thought of the French Revolution, he answered, "It's too soon to tell.")

Also, 15% of French Masons are females, which is a pretty sizable percentage for any country. By contrast, female Masonic lodges are as rare as unicorns in the U.S. That's not meant as a swipe to anyone, just a simple fact. Female and co-Masonic lodges have never gained traction in the U.S. at any point in history (likely due to the popularity of the Order of the Eastern Star between the end of the Civil War until the late 20th century).