Before being swept away by the scandal of his account in Switzerland, the former minister Jérôme Cahuzac had long frequented an obedience which helped him in his ascent. Testimony.
"Jérôme is a very good mason." The man who agrees to respond to L'Express to discuss the career of the former budget minister knows what he is talking about: it was he who, in the 1990s, told him opened the doors of Freemasonry, at the Grand Orient of France (GODF). He is his "godfather", a sort of spiritual father.
Between them, everything begins with an explosive meeting in 1989. "Armand", let's call him that, because he refuses to have his name mentioned, represents the lobby of biologists at the time. Jerome Cahuzac, sixteen years his junior, is for his part adviser to the Minister of Health, the socialist Claude Evin. This age difference does not prevent Cahuzac from launching publicly: "We are going to cut off your head!" The government wants to tax up to 2 billion francs on medical analysis laboratories, whose resources are progressing dizzily.
At first, the doors slam. But the two men end up negotiating, and even liking each other. However, Armand is on the right, committed to the Radical Party "Valoisien" since the mid-1950s, while "Jérôme" is a rising figure in the Rocardian current in the Socialist Party. Little by little, Freemasonry also invites itself into their discussions. "Brotherhood, complicity, complicity and common culture, all this attracted Jérôme", testifies Armand. The initiation succeeded much later, since Jérôme Cahuzac entered Freemasonry on April 29, 1996, in one of the temples on rue Cadet, in Paris (IXe). "For several years, continues Armand, he wanted his wife, Patricia, to ignore his membership in the GODF, no doubt he feared the reaction of his in-laws."
If Jérôme Cahuzac has let himself be carried away by a right-wing godfather, the box where he begins to wear the "apron" is on the left. Locarno 28, created in 1928 - three years after the signing of the peace agreements in this Swiss city - is still predominantly socialist. Two famous Mitterrandians frequented it: a Minister of Defence, Charles Hernu (1923-1990), and an advisor for African affairs at the Elysée, Guy Penne (1925-2010).
For the legislative elections of 1997 and his parachuting into the radical-socialist Southwest, Jérôme Cahuzac's entry into masonry was timely. The PS of Villeneuve-sur-Lot (Lot-et-Garonne), in which the GODF is well represented, will help him. Decisive support, since he will win by a short head. In the municipal elections of 2001, he won the town hall against a brother of the French National Grand Lodge (GLNF), a competing obedience: a certain... Michel Gonelle, the man who, eleven years later, will be at the origin of his fall with the famous recording.
“He lied to protect others”
Having become deputy and mayor, Jérôme Cahuzac no longer has time to frequent his Parisian lodge, where Armand only welcomes him twice a year. Despite everything, he remains, according to him, a "good mason", capable of offering brilliant "planks" (exhibitions) and of rendering many services; one day for the transfer of a civil servant brother, another for a place in a school. "I tried to calm him down when he criticized Nicolas Sarkozy with excessive violence," Armand told L'Express.
The latter admits to having been "collapsed" when he learned of the minister's lie before the National Assembly, parliamentary representation so dear to the hearts of Masons. He does not intend to contest the decision of the GODF to suspend him from his box from the end of April. But the godfather-godson relationship seems indestructible. "So there was a personality split in Jérôme, continues Armand, always ready to help him. He lied to protect others. Stop the manhunt, so cruel for his three children!"
source: Lexpress.fr
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