Bruno Retailleau has indeed been appointed Minister of the Interior by Emmanuel Macron. The symbol of a very right-wing shift.
The leader of the Republicans in the Senate was appointed Minister of the Interior this Saturday, September 21, after weeks of negotiations. The symbol of the choice of Emmanuel Macron and Michel Barnier to form a very right-wing government following the legislative elections last July. LR senator and strongman of the lower house of Parliament, Bruno Retailleau is notably on the same line as the Prime Minister on matters of immigration and security. The former sovereignist – he sat in Philippe de Villiers’ party – is also in line with Gérald Darmanin, who initiated the immigration bill to which he contributed greatly.
Bruno Retailleau was indeed largely involved in drafting the toughened version of the immigration law adopted at the end of 2023, before his group’s contributions were largely 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.
Retailleau supplanted two other options
In the event that Bruno Retailleau had not been finally selected, two other names had been mentioned for a time: Frédéric Péchenard and Laurent Nuñez. The former director general of the national police, Frédéric Péchenard, was in fact pulled out of the hat in the last hours, notably in an article in the Point. The man is close to Nicolas Sarkozy and he has already been approached by Emmanuel Macron for the Ministry of the Interior. In 2018, he was offered a position under Christophe Castaner, which he refused, due to lack of sufficient room for maneuver.
More recently, the name of Laurent Nuñez had also come up on the table. The Paris police prefect was one of the hypotheses, but this quickly faded away, as indicated by Politico. The man nevertheless worked as Secretary of State at the Ministry of Place Beauvau between 2018 and 2020 and made a career in the police until becoming Police Prefect of Marseille and then Paris. Did Laurent Nuñez refuse an offer because he felt better in his position than in a future government with an uncertain future? The question deserves to be asked.
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…