Bruno Retailleau is a careful reader of the press. The Minister of the Interior has traveled all the articles relating his cordial relationship with Emmanuel Macron. Two men with ideological antipodes, united by the best interests of the nation. It’s beautiful as Disney. And rather fair. The Head of State appreciates the rigor of the Vendéen, who praised his mastery of the files, and everyone, yesterday, repeatedly repeated it twice. From now on, Bruno Retailleau would like this Concorde not to fulfill too much. Understand it. He is campaigning for the presidency of the Republicans against Laurent Wauquiez. That he works under the orders of a hated president, still passes. Let him appreciate it, the potion is bitter for LR members.
So, this Sunday, March 16, the tenant of Beauvau leaflet The Parisian the light spirit. “Retailleau threatens to resign”, title Le Quotidien, interview with support. The formulation exaggerates the content of the interview, reread upstream by Matignon and the Elysée. The minister is content to assert that he would refuse to give in his showdown with Algeria if “he was asked”, after several reminders. What does it matter. Bruno Retailleau has his patent opposition to macronism. The appointment of Béarnais had blunted this scent of cohabitation which floated under Michel Barnier. The smell goes up. Threat to leave, is it not to mean the pre-eminence of convictions?
The Algerian puzzle
If everything was so simple. Laurent Wauquiez can read, especially between the lines. The candidate at the head of LR takes his competitor in the word. With suspicious benevolence, he agreed with the Parisian And assigns him an ambitious objective. “The only lever is the denunciation of the 1968 agreements. The rest is bustle. If the president refuses to denounce them, staying at the Ministry of the Interior does not make sense.” This is bad – or else -, Emmanuel Macron opposes the “unilateral” denunciation of this agreement, which facilitates the admission of Algerians to France. Leaving or swallowing the snake too much: the trap is tense. “Wauquiez will enter each mouse hole, laughs an LR leader. Retailleau got in difficulty. He will be forced to resign if he does not get the case on the Algerian file”.
Laurent Wauquiez here found an involuntary ally. His name is François Bayrou. On February 26, the Prime Minister reports to the press of the Interministerial Immigration Control Committee (CICI). The day before, Bruno Retailleau convinced him to add the case of Algeria, who refuses to accept several of his nationals under an obligation to leave French territory (OQTF).
Before the press, the head of government is rough. He evokes in priority a possible “review” of the 1968 agreements. Nothing on the “graduated response” praised by the tenant of Beauvau. “This has revealed the graduated response as non -graduated,” deplores an intimate of the minister. And nourishes the binary choice imposed by Laurent Wauquiez. After the rejection this Monday, March 17 of a list of his nationals to expel submitted by France, Bruno Retailleau thus engaged this famous “response”, with the suspension of the visa exemption for holders of the Algerian diplomatic passport. He must now demonstrate the strength of this panoply of regulatory measures, far from the 1968 totemic agreement which he himself sacred. Laurent Wauquiez will not be, oh surprise, an ally. “My fear is that it is very graduated and little response,” he said on CNews on March 19.
With Laurent Wauquiez, a war of stories
Bruno Retailleau walks on a wire. The minister must assume his political singularity, without making incongruous his participation in the government of François Bayrou. Above all, do not give the impression of hanging on your job at all costs. Thus, he repeats ad nauseam that its right -hand line is supported by the Prime Minister. Religious signs in sport? “The Prime Minister was right to recall the government line, which is the ban on the veil in sports competitions organized by the federations,” he wrote on X, after a government hiccup. The response graduated against Algeria? Its implementation obviously resumes the conclusions of the “inter -ministerial committee under the presidency of the Prime Minister”. Around the first cop in France, we exhibit the arbitrations won in Matignon. This need for communication reflects a reality: the presence in Beauvau by Bruno Retailleau is less obvious than in the fall.
Laurent Wauquiez plays the opposite partition. The deputy of Haute-Loire strives to discredit the maintenance in the government of his competitor. This March 18, he targets during questions to the government (QAG) the absence of a major immigration law on the parliamentary calendar. And what does it matter if such a cathedral law was dismissed by François Bayrou as soon as he was appointed, without Laurent Wauquiez then coming up with vehement. “Are you determined to give the means to your government to act in the face of uncontrolled immigration?” He said to the gallery. Bruno Retailleau knows he is targeted by this fake outstretched hand. He sketches a smile. The SAVIN bill on the ban on religious signs in sports competitions does not find its favors more. He wishes to extend this prohibition in “all the sporting life of clubs affiliated with federations”.
The art of resignation
At the beginning of January 2025, Bruno Retailleau traded with a nearby elected official. This parliamentarian dissuades the Minister from embarking on the battle for the presidency of LR. What if an attack hit France? The Vendéan reassures him. The attacks of November 13, 2015 suspended the regional campaign, before the vote finally took place. Yes, he can combine his functions in Beauvau and his status as a candidate for an internal election. Is the reciprocal true? Bruno Retailleau does not intend to leave his post. He ensures the results and measures the political weight given to it by this magisterium. “Leaving? It would be necessary on a major subject, which strikes my convictions and the national interest. Whether it is a subject understandable by the general public,” he recently slipped into a small committee. Man does not want to “capitulate” against the Algerian regime and offer him his scalp.
Resignation is a complex art. She has her glorious precedents, like the shattering departure of Jacques Chirac de Matignon from 1976. But also her litany of swords in water, such as that of Michel Rocard in 1985. The Minister of Agriculture had resigned to protest the introduction of proportional, before tidying out the outgoing president in 1988. “Everything that appears as a political calculation would be fatal. And our signals show that the French on the right judge that it is useful to the government “. A nearby elected official is alarmed by a disavowal of Emmanuel Macron on the Algerian file. “If Macron humiliates it publicly, he will have to leave”. The ex-boss of the Senators LR will in this case spare the reading of laudatory articles on his relationship with the president.
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