The only time that Bruno Retailleau (Cholet, 63 years old) debated face to face with Emmanuel Macron, he was questioned about the policy of the president of the French Republic, based on his famous “in même temps” [al mismo tiempo]the catchphrase with which he used to express the fluidity of an idea and the ability to adapt to it without a priori: such as being left or right, depending on the opportunity of the moment. The new Minister of the Interior, a country man little given to Florentine filigree, then cited a hunting anecdote that excited his grandfather: “He always told me that when the woodcock zigzagged to one side, you had to shoot in the opposite direction to catch it.” ”. A rudimentary vision put forward in 2017, but which now clearly describes the situation of French politics. Also the role that he himself will have to play as Minister of the Interior in that flight to the right that Macron has undertaken and that could last just a few wingspan.
Retailleau appeared last Monday for his first day of work in Place Beauvau, headquarters of the Ministry of the Interior, and outlined his three main objectives.“Restore order, restore order, restore order.” He said it, stopping between each speech, like one of those paradisesthat footballers use before taking penalties and, above all, he verbalized it in front of his predecessor, Gérald Darmanin, indirectly accusing him of being the cause of the disorder. Dry and cutting, he also made clear his love for the police and the forces of order and invoked George Clemenceau, the only Minister of the Interior (in 1906) who came from the Vendée, the province where he was born, in the Loire region. But he was also the first to coin the term “the first police officer” to refer to the ministry he would occupy. It was a strange thing to have to go back 118 years. Almost as much as the appointment of the leader of the Republicans in the Senate, a man with a relatively unknown profile and famous for the harshness of his positions on social issues such as abortion or homosexual marriage. Its designation, however, fulfills a very specific function.
Marine Le Pen, the big loser of the last legislative elections, is today the most influential person in Michel Barnier’s Executive. Its 126 deputies and 11 million votes are key to the survival of the new prime minister’s government, which needs to demonstrate toughness on key issues for the far-right party. And Retailleau, with all his history, is an ideological grimace in the form of a wink. “When towels and rags are mixed, in the end, that creates helplessness. This paralyzes France and leads to disaster,” the new minister launched in July regarding some ideas about the country’s own configuration. Now, however, he himself will sit in a Council of Ministers where there are Macronists whom he always despised, men belonging to a moderate right that he renounced and even a left-wing politician, Didier Migaud: the new Minister of Justice, with who has already clashed and will have to struggle to carry out his heavy-handed policy and try to reform some laws, such as that of self-defense.
Retailleau has also been defending for several years measures contrary to the Constitution, such as the establishment of a national preference for access to social benefits or the obligation to present asylum applications at French consulates abroad.
The new Minister of the Interior, Catholic, married and father of three children, tried to be the president of Los Republicanos in 2022, but lost. He also refused to join the forces of his party with National Regrouping (RN), as promoted by the man who had beaten him in those primaries, Éric Ciotti, whom he described as a “traitor” for allying himself with Le Pen. But the vision of the country of the new police chief and person in charge of immigration issues is, deep down, very aligned with the extreme right of the RN, as the party’s deputy Jean-Philippe Tanguy recognized on Thursday. “Mr. Retailleau is inspired by our program and, in general, by the right-wing sovereignty from which he comes,” he noted. But he also clarified: “In his actions he has always betrayed his political families. “He has betrayed Philippe de Villiers, and never had the courage to oppose Emmanuel Macron in the presidential elections by supporting Marine Le Pen,” he said, firing a bullet.
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It is useful to travel to the ins and outs of local politics in the Vendée to understand Tanguy’s words and find the origins of Retailleau, the son of farmers and wholesale seed sellers who managed to make his way in Parisian academic and political circles. The new minister began his career as the right-hand man of the mayor of Mortagne-sur-Sèvre, Gérard Brosset. But on September 20, 1988, during the cantonal elections, he decided to run against him, encouraged by Philippe de Villiers. The one who was Secretary of State during the mandate of Jacques Chirac and founder of the Movement for France, a sovereignist and monarchist party, soon became a mentor to Retailleau, who at that time already had some ideas of his own. “Taxpayer money should not finance an almost pornographic film. “The artists have their freedom, the elected also,” he justified to explain his refusal to support the filming of Presque laugha short film by Sébastien Lifshitz that recounted the meeting between two 18-year-old boys. In 2004 he became a senator.
Teacher and student shared experiences and were close companions at the ideological bar. And the romance lasted until the new Minister of the Interior, who had already acquired a certain weight, decided to let go of the ball and distance himself. In retaliation, Villiers repeatedly torpedoed the possible entry of his old disciple into the governments of Nicolas Sarkozky. And as time passed, he himself confirmed the breakup and the idea of betrayal through a tweet: “The Vendée was nothing more than a springboard. Betray once, always betray,” he wrote when his former Dauphin announced that he was leaving the Vendée to aspire to the Pays de la Loire region, which he presided over from 2015.
Retailleau, a horse riding lover, was also François Fillon’s campaign manager for the 2017 presidential election, perhaps the only prime minister with a Cabinet more to the right than the current one. After that failure, he decided to fly alone with his ultra-conservative ideals. And in the last ones, charging against the President of the Republic, without caring where he took flight. “Macron’s verticality is nothing more than the exaltation of his own personality, a narcissism rather than a reestablished state authority,” he said in an interview. A Republican-Macronist coalition? “Fictional politics,” he responded 15 days after the last European elections last June. Now, sitting right next to him in the Council of Ministers, I could only add to that finality of three months ago a resigned “in même temps…”.
