The epic of Bruno Retailleau will have a glorious video trace. This Wednesday, January 22, the Minister of the Interior pronounces his wishes to the parliamentarians of the common base. The Vendéen unfolds his road map and sketches his self-portrait. That of a man with firm convictions, but open to compromise. He thus enjoys his belonging to a Bayrou government, unimaginable for him last summer.
In the room, journalist Louis Morin immortalizes the scene. The author of two complacent documentaries on Eric Zemmour and Gabriel Attal follows in the footsteps of Bruno Retailleau. What will he film this time in the wheel of the new darling of opinion polls? An Interior Minister focused on his task? A presidential future for the right? A bit of both, no doubt. Bruno Retailleau, the double permanent state. There is the “monk-soldier” of politics, doctrinaire and hardly a fan of dirty tricks. Valérie Pécresse privately notes the loyalty of the former senator during the last presidential election, far from the “ball” Eric Ciotti. There is, also, the ambitious, eager to offer himself to the cameras. The one who would have loved to represent the right in 2022 but gave up due to lack of notoriety. The one who knows how to maneuver, surrounded by a team of faithful people, to defend his interests. “He is reliable, but hides a more political side than he would like to believe,” slips an LR executive. These two faces collide today.
“Oh, you’re annoying me…”
Bruno Retailleau is not a rude man. But he sometimes lets himself go. “Oh, you’re annoying me…” That’s what working with collaborators with fixed ideas is all about. Those close to the Vendéen have been urging him for weeks to launch into the battle for the presidency of the Republicans (LR), expected in 2025. On his arrival in Beauvau, the minister dismissed the idea out of hand. Who imagines the first cop in France launching into a laborious internal campaign? The downgrading would be almost physical. But something has changed. Insolent polls and a lasting quarrel with Laurent Wauquiez transformed the obvious into a dilemma. There is also this friendly pressure from elected officials who would like to see him take action to block the path of the deputy for Haute-Loire. Bruno Retailleau now avoids the subject in public, limiting himself to recalling that he would take his “responsibilities”.
Behind the scenes, the question is nagging. The minister listens to the advice of elected officials. Takes note of the arguments he knows by heart, all of which are reversible. Let’s start with the negative. A duel against Laurent Wauquiez – whose ambitions are in no doubt – would be “bloody”. The war of leaders, mortal sin of the right, would be back. The tenant of Beauvau would lose his splendor in an internal election, which is inherently inglorious. “To what degree will this campaign damage it?, asks a friend. “Because it will damage it.” “This could do you a disservice,” a former minister warned, using an example from Pau to back it up. François Bayrou was struck by lightning after his escapade at the Pau municipal council at the end of December. What would the French think of their minister’s daily activist meetings? He himself, hardly excited, fears this intellectual dispersion. In 2022, he tried to wrest the presidency from the Republicans. But he defended a united candidacy against the divisive Eric Ciotti, suspected of fracturing the party. This campaign would this time signify a national ambition.
There is no shortage of them! That’s the problem. Nicolas Sarkozy, who has never lacked an appetite, believes that he should go for it. The policy is Darwinian, a victory would seal his leadership on the right. “If you go, you win,” assured a deputy to Bruno Retailleau. MEP François-Xavier Bellamy judges privately that he would then have an “independent apparatus behind him so as not to be associated with the survivors of Macronism”. “There is a tension between his character as a well-bred guy and his pragmatism on how politics works,” notes a faithful. Arbitration will draw a politician. Even someone close to Emmanuel Macron made his plea. “Are you going to let Wauquiez go?”
Damaged trust with Wauquiez
An assumed rivalry. What if that was the characteristic of ambitious people? Bruno Retailleau found one with the boss of the Republican Right (DR) deputies. For a long time, the Vendéen nurtured a form of deference towards Laurent Wauquiez. He savored his culture, bowed to his cascading diplomas. Far from the reservations of Gérard Larcher, skeptical towards the normalien, “happy to be done”. “He has the qualities to be our candidate,” admitted Bruno Retailleau in September 2022 on France Inter. 2025 version? Fresher. “Laurent is one of the great talents of our political family. He will have a role to play.” On BFMTV, this time he refuses to discuss the presidential election. Between the two interventions, a little nothing: damaged confidence.
The minister suspects Laurent Wauquiez of having orchestrated the return of the right to the opposition after the censorship of Michel Barnier. The former regional boss criticizes the Vendéen for clinging to his position, to the detriment of a collective balance of power. Apogee of the crisis: the eviction of Bruno Retailleau by the elected representative of Haute-Loire from a meeting around Emmanuel Macron on December 6, 2024. At first glance, you have to grab a microscope to be interested in the episode. But the Retailleau camp uses it opportunely to investigate the trial of the bad player Wauquiez, with a well-loaded record. The role of the villain is assigned to him. The boss of the DR deputies then lays down his arms with the Figaro and provides strong support to the Minister of the Interior. Victory by knockout.
“You are going to make him a proconsul”
“We couldn’t win the media story, mocks a supporter of the DR MP. Too many people wanted to tell the story of Wauquiez trying to break the knees of Retailleau in full rise. It was lost in advance for us, the profession of a journalist is sheepish. Bruno Retailleau lets his entourage do it.” An elected official with a diplomatic profile will go so far as to reassure Laurent Wauquiez: “Don’t think that everything in the press is validated by Bruno!” The minister’s apostles are often less wise than their boss.
The affair leaves traces. During the formation of the government, Laurent Wauquiez warned François Bayrou about Retailleau’s growing weight: “You are going to make him a proconsul.” In front of a former minister on the floor, he highlights his rival’s poor negotiating skills. The tenant of Beauvau nevertheless mastered the codes of the time. Five days before the formation of the government, he allowed himself a muscular television outing to defend his road map. In a text message, he said to an elected LR official: “We have to turn up the volume. Nothing can be done without us otherwise it’s dead.” Here again, convictions and ambitions intertwine. His supporters praise the intransigence of someone who does not want to make up the numbers. The others mock a scenario intended to reassure his camp when his choice to keep his wallet had already been made – meanwhile, François Bayrou, not fooled, smiles. “He clung on to stay whatever the conditions, mocks an LR leader. Where is his big immigration law?”
Bruno Retailleau is not a white goose. On November 18, he went to Meaux to observe the functioning of the municipal police, at the invitation of mayor Jean-François Copé. At lunchtime, we don’t just talk about crime figures. “You’re a real political beast!” says the minister to his host. He learns quickly. Wasn’t he reconciled in the blink of an eye with Nicolas Sarkozy, whom he exhausted during his 2022 internal campaign? “Here I am, Sarkozyste,” he told him in September after an initial telephone exchange.
“Sarkozyste” late
In Beauvau, he resisted pressure from the Darmanin camp, wishing to impose the minister’s former chief of staff Alexandre Brugère in the strategic position of director general of the police. “It’s as if I had breakfast with Darmanin every morning,” Bruno Retailleau will joke privately. The coalition has its advantages. The Vendéen uses his freedom of expression, even if it means going beyond his perimeter. Here, his defense of pension reform, in the middle of the executive’s negotiations with the socialists. There, his hostility to the right to “euthanasia and assisted suicide”.
How far will the “political” Retailleau go? The minister assures that he is not “devoured by the presidential virus”. The right wants to believe it. His rise opens up unexpected perspectives, likely to tickle his ego. The right thinks so too. So, the psychology of the former boss of LR senators is dissected. There is the “reasonable and reasoned” Retailleau, too normal to attempt Everest. And “ambitious” Retailleau, supported by public opinion.
Everyone is wondering. Does Laurent Wauquiez have a rival for 2027? A lieutenant from Vendéen tried to reassure the team of the Haute-Loire deputy by means of a curious argument. Bruno Retailleau did not settle in the large staff apartment on Place Beauvau, preferring more modest Parisian accommodation. This is indeed a sign of relative ambition! Please believe it. On January 13, 2025, he went to Le Havre to discuss drug trafficking with Edouard Philippe. The two men talk in the mayor’s office, with a magnificent view of the city. The minister allows himself a touch of humor. Why give up such a beautiful panorama in 2027?
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