The centre-right has chosen its candidate for next year’s presidential election: Bruno Retailleau president of Les Républicains (LR).
His is, effectively, the legacy party of de Gaulle, Pompidou, Giscard d'Estaing, Chirac and Sarkozy.
Since Sarko’s defeat in 2012 by François Hollande, the traditional right has been pushed to the margins of French politics, as has the traditional left, though there were signs in the recent municipal elections that there might be a slight revival in their fortunes.
Is Mr Retailleau the man to put the movement back into the Elysée Palace? I am far from convinced that he is.
First, let’s look at him. He will be 67 by the time votes are cast next spring, and has bags of experience.
He served in local politics in the Vendée from 1988 until 2015, so has done the traditional toiling at the grassroots of French political life.
He served for three years as a member of the Assemblée nationale in the 1990s, became a senator in 2004 and was the president of his party’s group in the Senate from 2014 to 2024.
He also held the presidencies of the General Council of the Vendée and of the Regional Council of the Pays de la Loire.
His national political ambitions took something of a blow in the 2017 presidential campaign.
He was a prominent supporter of François Fillon, and became his campaign co-ordinator. However, Mr Fillon’s run for the presidency was derailed by allegations against him of corruption.
High hopes
With the incumbent, François Hollande, bowing out after an unpopular presidency, the campaign began without a strong establishment candidate, and Emmanuel Macron won the crown.
Mr Retailleau must have entertained hopes of high office in a Fillon presidency; it was not to be.
It was not even easy for him to secure prominence in his own party. He ran for its presidency in 2022, to be defeated by Eric Ciotti.
The two men fell out in 2024 over whether there should be some degree of alliance on the right between Les Républicains and the Rassemblement National (RN).
A year ago, Mr Retailleau ran for the party’s presidency again, this time against Laurent Wauquiez, and won in early 2025 by a landslide, with 76% of the vote.
However, by this time there was a new dimension to Mr Retailleau’s career. As Mr Macron desperately tried to broaden the composition of the government to ward off the coalition of opposition against it, he appointed Mr Retailleau as interior minister in September 2024, in the government of Michel Barnier.
Two years earlier, not least on the initiative of Mr Retailleau, Les Républicains had refused any part in a government under the presidency of Mr Macron.
Two years later, as well as offering the chance to build the party’s credentials in advance of the 2027 election, helping Mr Macron survive had become the least worst – or, as they would prefer to see it, the patriotic – option.
Increasingly vocal
Even before getting into office, Mr Retailleau appeared to have worked out that in the rivalry between his party and the RN, further to the right, if he could not join them he could attempt to beat them.
He became an increasingly vocal opponent of mass immigration, famously – or notoriously – calling French citizens of other ethnicities Français de papier – French on paper only.
He blamed Brussels for stripping France “of control over its borders”, and causing what is seen as the crisis of immigration.
As a consequence, unsurprisingly, he is a critic of the European Court of Human Rights. But he also attacked the 1968 French government’s immigration arrangements with the former colony of Algeria, which he argued had to be repealed.
He used his 13 months as interior minister to establish a tough-on-crime platform, particularly towards young offenders.
Populist
After leaving the government shortly after the arrival of Sébastien Lecornu at Matignon, Mr Retailleau has been free to pursue his increasingly populist – and souverainiste – policies.
These have helped him considerably in his quest for the candidacy. Whether they will propel him to the presidency is quite a different matter.
Also from the traditional right comes Edouard Philippe, former prime minister and now mayor of Le Havre (Seine-Maritime), who said in 2024 that he would run. He does not appear to have clarified under what banner, rather like Emmanuel Macron before 2017.
Mr Philippe endorsed President Macron in 2022, so it seems certain he will – however he describes his affiliation – be the Macronist candidate next year.
He is, effectively, a centrist candidate, somewhat to the left of Mr Retailleau in that he is a little more accepting of migrants.
As one can see, the field for non-leftist candidates is becoming rather crowded.
Mr Retailleau starts to look like an enthusiastic replica of Jordan Bardella, who barring some unexpected event in the courts is widely seen to be the RN’s candidate next spring.
Unfortunately for Mr Retailleau, Mr Bardella has certain advantages over him: he is half Mr Retailleau’s age, he is the real deal in terms of social and immigration policy rather than an imitation of it, and there are elements of socialism in the RN’s programme that will appeal more to the French working man and woman than M Retailleau’s cautious capitalism.
Also, Mr Bardella is in a relationship with a princess – Maria Carolina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. Nothing could guarantee him more media coverage in the run-up to the election.
The split in the right-of-centre vote continues to favour the RN. Mr Retailleau’s only hope is that no left-wing candidate reaches the last two, and it is a showdown between him and Mr Bardella.
He can then play the extremism card against the RN and hope, as in 2002 with Jacques Chirac against Jean-Marie Le Pen, that the left will back him. But it looks like a long shot from here.
