Don’t call it “reframing.” More like a “work meeting”. Authoritarian rhetoric would be unwelcome, less than a week after the formation of the government. This Thursday, September 26, Michel Barnier receives Bruno Retailleau and Didier Migaud at Matignon for breakfast. The Ministers of the Interior and Justice have been scolding through the media since their appointment. The tenant of Beauvau mocks a “right to non-execution of sentences”, when the Minister of Justice defends “the independence of justice”. Classic between these two houses. Michel Barnier wants to calm things down and prepare his General Policy Declaration (DPG) with them. In this closed session, Bruno Retailleau evokes an evolution of our penal architecture, his obsession. Why on earth would a Minister of the Interior refrain from talking about justice? How can we continue to ask police officers and gendarmes to take greater risks every day if the sanction following arrest is uncertain? The criminal chain is indivisible! The man leaves the interview satisfied, convinced of his performance.
It is a personality trait unanimously recognized by Bruno Retailleau. He does not compromise on his convictions. The right praises this rigidity, the left fears it. She has in mind her denunciation of a “regression towards the ethnic origins” of certain French people during the urban riots. The presidential camp has not forgotten the stiffness of the Vendéen during the examination of the immigration bill. The boss of the LR senators had even fallen out with Eric Ciotti, guilty of giving in too much to the government in the Joint Committee (CMP). No, Beauvau will not be its ideological cemetery.
“A form of evidence in his behavior”
For a long time Bruno Retailleau observed this crumbling Assembly with a wary eye. “We won’t be able to do anything in this executive, there is no majority,” he told an LR elected official during the summer. Impotence does not suit the theoretician, eternal slayer of the government of judges. The appointment of Michel Barnier whetted his appetite.
He entered Beauvau with a mixture of gravity and euphoria. To one of his predecessors, he spoke of a “tough task” and a “perilous mission”. But let’s go. The right exercises power by miracle, Bruno Retailleau wishes to use this window of opportunity to deploy his entire body of ideas. “He spent his life saying what he thought. He wants to do what he said,” notes a close friend. “There is a form of evidence in his behavior.” And then, power comes so late. Why pull the handbrake at 63? Thus, his transfer of power speech on September 23 takes on the air of an electoral rally. In a martial tone and without notes, Bruno Retailleau poses as a “servant” of the police and establishes “order” as a political compass.
The Macronist is a susceptible species. When the minister promises to “restore order”, he hears that Gérald Darmanin caused the disorder. Elisabeth Borne criticizes this clumsy formula at a group meeting of Ensemble pour la République (EPR) deputies. This inventory from a representative of a party accustomed to electoral defeats is decidedly inappropriate. And what about this witticism from Bruno Retailleau, mischievously promising to live up to his “predecessor… Georges Clemenceau” during a meeting at Matignon? The repartee does not excuse everything!
What does Macronist exegesis matter? Bruno Retailleau rushes forward, determined to intoxicate France with the scent of alternation. At Figarohe delivers a firm speech and assures that a “police officer is not a social worker”. Like Nicolas Sarkozy, in 2003 slamming community policing and its “rugby matches”. Did the former president see it as a tribute? In any case, he congratulated Bruno Retailleau on his debut at the Ministry of the Interior. The two will share lunch on October 1. There is no doubt that the former candidate for the presidency of LR will not repeat the fierce criticism made towards the former head of state during his internal campaign. Sometimes you have to be flexible.
“Accountant for future miscellaneous events”
That day, Michel Barnier will deliver his DPG to the National Assembly. Bruno Retailleau did not wait for him to present his roadmap. She’s the muscular type. Here, the possibility of a reform of State Medical Aid (AME) or a reestablishment of the offense of illegal residence to reduce immigration. There, the call for a “break” in criminal matters and the creation of new prison places. After the murder of the young Filipina, he called for an evolution of “our legal arsenal”. Finally discusses the possibilities offered by the regulatory power and does not “forbid” a new law on immigration. An EPR executive enjoys this ideological latitude. “He behaves like an interior minister with an absolute majority after the presidential election.” Above all, Matignon would like him not to be another Minister of the Interior. Rushing like the others, at the risk of disappointing just as much.
There’s a catch. Only 47 LR deputies survived the last legislative elections. Bruno Retailleau is supported by a coalition ranging from the right to the central bloc, hardly in line with his right-wing positioning. The former majority has little taste for this opponent steeped in certainties, now subject to the constraints of “the exercise of power”, and “accounting for future news items”.
The minister should be heard by the Law Commission after Michel Barnier’s DPG. Some EPR elected officials even thought of summoning him before this speech, before giving up on this political coup. “If he steps over Parliament, he will take it head-on,” warns an MP. Bruno Retailleau called the boss of the EPR group Gabriel Attal the day after his appointment. The former Prime Minister, whom he knows little, appreciated the gesture, the interview went well. But he will not be a strong ally in this team. “If an immigration bill incorporating the measures censored by the Constitutional Council is presented, it will not pass,” assured Gabriel Attal to Michel Barnier.
Public opinion as witness
Here is Bruno Retailleau warned. He believes he has a major asset: public opinion. He stands as a repository of the popular will in his new functions. Poses himself as a ventriloquist for the French, eager for regal firmness. “We must hear the message they sent us in the first round of the legislative elections. What do they want? More security, less immigration. I am a democrat, respectful of the sovereign people, and therefore I “I will apply this road map”, he said on September 24 on CNews.
This very personal reading of the election supports his intransigence. To the legitimacy of parliamentarians, Bruno Retailleau implicitly opposes that of the “national majority”. According to an Odoxa survey for Le Figaroa large majority of French people approve of the reinstatement of the offense of illegal stay or the replacement of the AME by emergency medical aid (AMU). Isn’t contesting these projects muzzling the people? Around the minister, people joke about the difficulty for parliamentarians from the central bloc to defeat Beauvau’s initiatives. “Everything will be done under the gaze of public opinion. It will be impossible to be a central bloc candidate in 2027 without speaking to the right on these subjects. Neither Barnier nor Attal will slow down this movement.” His partners in the presidential camp intend to resist this pressure to maintain their identity.
“Not sure he is sparing his positions”
Playing with opinion to prevail. Playing with opinion, to what extent? The central bloc is already wondering about the minister’s intentions. On his real desire to build compromises or his desire to maintain his doctrinal purity. “I am not sure that he is sparing his positions,” notes an EPR executive. “He can go through with a tough approach and then slam the door, saying that he does not have the means for his policy.”
The general will against political obstacles. The strategy is clear. Sincere, too. The Vendéen did not wait for Beauvau to place “popular sovereignty” at the heart of his speech. His denunciation of a supposed government of judges, accused of curbing democracy, is part of this intellectual wake. But opinion is not an infallible weapon. In 1952, Antoine Pinay was a popular president of the Council of Ministers, at the mercy of an uncontrollable National Assembly. A deputy congratulated him one day, recounts the journalist Guillaume Tabard in The Curse of the Right (Tempus). “You have the country behind you, Mr. President.” Lucid, Pinay retorts: “Perhaps, but I have Parliament in front of me.”
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