Bruno Retailleau has agreed to become the new Minister of the Interior in the Barnier government. And he does not intend to be a figurehead.
The leader of the Republicans in the Senate was appointed Minister of the Interior on Saturday, September 21. He embodies a very right-wing, conservative line and has always advocated for greater firmness in matters of security and immigration. This Monday, September 23, 2024, during his transfer of power at Place Beauvau, the new minister gave a speech setting the tone for the action he intends to take: “I will never give in, I will not let it go and I will not tolerate any attack, any offense. Shame on those who instill hatred towards our law enforcement in their speeches, it is unworthy and I will never let it happen. […] We must have the courage to be firm, the French want more order, order in the streets, order at the borders.”
The new Interior Minister added: “I have three priorities: restore order, restore order, restore order. I believe in order as a condition of freedom. When there is no order, freedom is threatened.”
Bruno Retailleau should quickly propose a new text to tighten the conditions of access to foreigners on French territory. Michel Barnier, who made a commitment to this, knows that his new minister has mastered the issues on immigration. The Republican also contributed to tightening the previous immigration bill with Gérald Darmanin, his predecessor. The Prime Minister did not give a date or timetable for new measures on the subject to be on the table, but the head of government promised on September 22 at 8 p.m. on France 2 “practical things to control and limit immigration, which is becoming unbearable and which leads to not welcoming those we welcome into our country.”
The final version of the immigration law was a version revised and corrected by the Senate, part of the drafting of which had been done by Bruno Retailleau, but the Republicans’ additions were partly censored by the Constitutional Council. “The State has lost control,” he judged in an interview published on the LR party website. He “can no longer enforce his laws, protect those who serve them, contain uncontrolled immigration, control the neighborhoods where weapons of war are being fired upon, […] nor to secure its prisons,” he explained.
In addition to immigration, the senator’s positions on security and family make him the representative of a hard right within LR. Enough to transform his appointment into a new shift to the right of the government. If a shift to the right of power has been criticized by Emmanuel Macron, particularly by the left, the President of the Republic does not share, on the other hand, certain positions of the right-wing senator. To what extent was Emmanuel Macron voluntary, pushed or forced in this choice? The answer to this question would also give an indication of the degree of cohabitation that will reign over the new executive duo, since it is still difficult to know whether Michel Barnier will pose as an opposition Prime Minister to Macron or a coalition Prime Minister.
The choice of Bruno Retailleau is also a pledge sent to the hard right, even to the extreme right, which is still reserving the decision on the advisability or not of this new government. Which makes some Macronists and the left say that the Barnier government is “under the supervision” of the National Rally, although it does not actually include any RN ministers.
By his political weight and what he embodies on the right and now in this government, Bruno Retailleau appears in any case as the new strongman of the executive. By agreeing to join Michel Barnier’s team, despite his past as an opponent and his very harsh judgment towards Emmanuel Macron in recent months, he has above all chosen a strategy diametrically opposed to that of Laurent Wauquiezleader of the Republicans in the National Assembly, who announced that he would not be part of the government. The future will tell which of the two chose the right option…
Who is Bruno Retailleau?
Born on November 20, 1960 in Cholet, this senator from Vendée and president of the Les Républicains (LR) group in the Senate has established himself as an influential voice within his party in recent years. Bruno Retailleau took his first steps in politics in the 1980s. After studying philosophy, he joined forces with Philippe de Villiers, founder of the Mouvement pour la France (MPF), a sovereignist and conservative party. He quickly became his right-hand man, particularly in Vendée, a department where Philippe de Villiers enjoys considerable influence. Bruno Retailleau was elected general councilor of Vendée in 1988, marking the beginning of his political career at the local level.
His closeness to Philippe de Villiers led him to become vice-president of the Vendée General Council in 1988, then president of the Pays de la Loire Regional Council in 2015. However, relations between the two men gradually deteriorated. In 2010, he distanced himself from the MPF to join the UMP, Nicolas Sarkozy’s party, marking a turning point in his career.
A figure of the senatorial right
The Senate quickly became the main theatre of Bruno Retailleau’s political ambitions. In 2004, he was elected senator for Vendée and began to build a reputation as a man of the field, attached to the values of the traditional right and. His positions are often conservative on societal issues, but he adopts a more liberal line on economic matters.
In 2014, after the electoral debacle of the UMP in the municipal elections, Retailleau was elected president of the UMP group (which became Les Républicains in 2015) in the Senate. It was in this role that he truly became known to the French. He positioned himself as a figure of consensus within his party, capable of speaking to all sensibilities on the right. Under his presidency, the LR group in the Senate developed certain reforms of the left-wing government, under the presidency of François Hollande, notably on the Labor Law.
The Failed 2017 Presidential Campaign
Close to François Fillon, Bruno Retailleau became the coordinator of his campaign for the 2027 presidential election after the latter’s victory in the primary of the right and the center in 2016. Retailleau shares with Fillon a conservative vision on societal issues and an assumed liberalism on economic issues.
However, the fictitious jobs affair that tarnished François Fillon compromised the campaign. Bruno Retailleau maintained his support until the end, but Fillon’s defeat in the first round of the presidential election marked a setback in his career. This episode did not prevent him from continuing to weigh in the Senate, where he became an opposition figure to the presidency of Emmanuel Macron, while defending a right-wing project firmly anchored on the issues of security and immigration.
National ambitions and LR management
After the presidential election, Bruno Retailleau remained an influential voice within the right, particularly in the face of the rise of Emmanuel Macron and La République En Marche. In 2020, he ran for president of the Les Républicains party, but ultimately withdrew to support Christian Jacob, in a gesture of unity. Bruno Retailleau embodies the senatorial right, more conservative and less inclined to compromise than the other elected members of LR. He has always advocated for a hard line on sovereign issues.