What weighs on him the most is his past statements. For example, he said a few years ago: "African immigration... these are people who do not share the same culture as us, they are people who come not to become French, but to enjoy our social rights." Recently, he linked mass immigration to the increase in crimes in France.
Bruno Retailleau is the new Minister of the Interior and, of the entire government, the most controversial figure. The left has already warned about his "reactionary" profile and Macronist deputies, from President Emmanuel Macron's party, also did not want him in the government team, considering him too conservative.
Within minutes of his appointment being official, he posted a message on the social media platform x (formerly Twitter) outlining his goals at the helm of the ministry: "Restore order, restore order, restore order". As the leader of the conservative party Les Républicains in the Senate, he pushed for a tougher immigration law passed a year ago, with Gérald Darmanin as the Minister of the Interior, thanks to the votes of Les Républicains and also the far-right party National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen.
A Catholic and father of three, Retailleau was a deputy from 1994 to 1997 and later joined the UMP, Nicolas Sarkozy's party, in 2010. He opposed same-sex marriage and last March voted against including the right to abortion in the French Constitution. This was eventually included in the Constitution with the votes of all parties.
These are the two stances that concern the left the most, as they fear a regression in the social progress that France has achieved in recent years. Former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal extracted a commitment from his successor, Michel Barnier, that this would not happen and that the rights of homosexuals would be protected.
He is accused of aligning with some ideas of the far right, but he criticized the "betrayal" of his party colleague, Eric Ciotti, when he allied with Marine Le Pen after Emmanuel Macron dissolved the Assembly last June and called for early legislative elections.
One of his goals is to amend the immigration law, which he himself voted for. He aims to reintroduce some of the tougher articles that were censored by the Constitutional Council. He intends to eliminate medical assistance for immigrants and replace it with emergency aid, among other measures. "Expel more and regularize less," he has stated.
Retailleau has already clashed with another member of the government, Justice Minister Didier Migaud, who was a member of the Socialist Party and is the only representative of the left in Barnier's team. The Interior Minister stated that there is a "non-execution of sentences in France." The Justice Minister responded that "the rate of sentence execution has never been higher in the country." He reminded that "there is no leniency in the justice system."
The death of a 19-year-old woman, whose body was found this past weekend in the Bois de Boulogne forest in Paris, has given him arguments to emphasize the need to harshen penalties. The perpetrator is an immigrant who had an order to leave French territory: "We have to evolve our legal arsenal."