Even his critics acknowledge that Bruno Retailleau is cultured, curious and uncommonly polite. When the new interior minister takes a stand, he does so with an almost old-fashioned elegance. In April 2017, while managing the presidential campaign of conservative candidate and former prime minister François Fillon, Retailleau debated then-presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron on France 2. He compared his "en même temps" (a refrain Macron commonly uses for positioning himself as a unifying centrist) approach to the zigzag flight of snipes, sharing a hunting anecdote dear to his grandfather: "He always told me that when the snipe went off in the zig, you had to shoot in the zag."
The president of the conservative Les Républicains (LR) group in the Sénat, known for his carefully chosen words, has frequently taken aim at this so-called "new world" Macron claimed to embody. A staunch defender of traditional right-wing values, he criticized it as recently as July: "When you mix napkins and tea towels, in the end, it forms a powerlessness. It sclerotizes France and drives it into the wall."
On Monday, Retailleau will sit at the same table in the Council of Ministers as Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet (labor minister), an early Macron supporter; Sébatien Lecornu (defense minister), a former LR member now estranged by his former party; and former Socialist Didier Migaud (justice minister), with whom Retailleau will form a distinctly "en même temps" partnership.
At 63, it was hard for Retailleau to watch this missed opportunity for a ministerial role slip away in 2017, following Fillon's defeat. "France missed out on a great president," he told Le Monde in 2023. On Friday, Retailleau announced his new position in front of his LR colleagues in the Sénat: "It's a question of responsibility." His is "to help a prime minister who comes from our family."
Retailleau's appointment to the Interior Ministry has sparked outrage on the left. "His appointment is a move to the extreme right, a reactionary minister in the truest sense of the word, and one who is under the control and supervision of the [far-right] Rassemblement National," said Roger Vicot, socialist MP and specialist in security issues. "It's the return of the old French right," murmured Ludovic Mendes, Renaissance (Macron's party) MP, speaking to BFM-TV.
A Catholic and father of three, Retailleau is a graduate of Sciences Po and a former member of Philippe de Villiers' nationalist party, the Mouvement pour la France (MPF). He served as a member of parliament from 1994 to 1997. After a falling out with de Villiers, Retailleau joined the UMP, which became LR, in 2010. Initially seen as an outsider, he eventually gained the trust of Fillon and became a leading voice in the conservative wing of the party, that of the Manif pour tous – a conservative movement founded to protest against same-sex marriage. Retailleau is known for his opposition to gay marriage and also voted against the constitutionalization of abortion in March.
You have 61.37% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.