Staunch conservative Bruno Retailleau has quickly shown his hardliner credentials as France’s new interior minister by taking a tough stance on immigration, crime and defending secularism.
“I have three priorities: restoring order, restoring order, restoring order,” said Bruno Retailleau as he took on his new role as France's interior minister on Monday.
"French people want more order – order in the streets, order at the borders," he added.
The veteran politician from the Les Républicains (LR) party is one of the few faces people may recognise in Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s new cabinet, and has long been a driving force behind his party's rightward shift.
As interior minister, Retailleau will handle critical domestic issues like national security, immigration and law enforcement issues on which he has criticised "laxness" in the outgoing administration.
Now the dedicated conservative is poised to hold a uniquely influential position in a right-leaning cabinet approved by President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday, despite the leftist New Popular Front alliance winning more seats than any other coalition in the snap June-July legislative vote.
Hard right
Retailleau was first elected to the National Assembly in 1994 and has represented the Vendée department in the Senate for the past 20 years, serving as president of the LR senatorial group since 2014.
Although a loyal member of Les Républicains for the past two decades, his political roots lie in the now-defunct Mouvement Pour La France party. “He’s a classic conservative on the hard right: deeply Catholic, traditional and neoliberal,” says Paul Smith, associate professor in French politics and history at University of Nottingham.
The political veteran has endorsed a hardening of penal laws such as lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 16 years old, increasing prison capacity and suspending family benefits for “irresponsible” parents. He also opposed same-sex marriage and the inclusion of the right to abortion in the French constitution.
He is known to hold hard-right views and has said his vision for Les Républicains is that it be “capable of bringing together all right-wing voters”.
“Retailleau continues to protest his difference from the far right, but by appointing him as interior minister it very much looks like the Barnier government is extending a hand of friendship to the extreme right,” says Andrew Smith, historian of modern France at Queen Mary University of London.
Crime, prisons, immigration
The new interior minister has been quick to take a hard line on security issues, positioning himself a defender of the police: “Shame on those who, in their speeches, distil hatred towards our forces of order. It's disgraceful, and I'll never let it happen, because they are the shield of the republic,” he said, speaking from a police headquarters on Monday.
He has also stated an intention to end illegal immigration, enforce more criminal sentences and build new prisons – instantly sparking a squabble with new Justice Minister Didier Migaud.
While the promises may sound bold, they are also familiar.
Retailleau takes over the role of interior minister from Macron ally Gérald Darmanin, who has served in the role since July 2020, and has himself been repeatedly accused of pandering to far-right sensibilities.
“Throughout Macron's presidency, the post of interior minister has been held by someone who is controversial and very firmly attached to the political right,” adds Andrew Smith. “What Retailleau’s appointment does, in many ways, is confirm an ongoing rightward shift of Macron’s notionally centrist government.”
“Is Retailleau very different from Darmanin? In practical terms, no,” says Paul Smith. “He's making promises that he probably can't keep. It's heavy on the rhetoric, but his actual ability to deliver on that rhetoric looks very unlikely.”
‘The key man’
Yet, as newly appointed interior minister, Retailleau now finds himself wielding an extraordinary amount of influence as a veteran politician in a cabinet of relative unknowns, and an administration that has spent months in political deadlock.
Read moreA look at key ministers in France's new government line-up
In the Senate, where LR holds more than a third of all seats, “everyone is fully behind him”, a senior member of the group told told AFP on Monday.
“The right wing of the government is totally under the influence of Bruno Retailleau and his conservative line,” added an LR source at the National Assembly.
“He could be very influential within government because he has plenty of experience of how politics works,” says Paul Smith. “He's well connected through the Senate, through the LR group, and as a consequence of that, well connected to local government.”
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the hard-left France Unbowed (La France Insoumise) party, had hoped to become prime minister after an alliance of leftist parties won the most seats in parliament in July's snap elections while falling short of a majority. Instead, Retailleau is now “the key man”, Mélenchon said over the weekend. “He is the one who will make the decisions in this country.”
