Bruno Retailleau | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Retailleau in 2025 | |
| Minister of State[a] Minister of the Interior | |
| In office 21 September 2024 – 12 October 2025 | |
| Prime Minister | Michel Barnier François Bayrou Sébastien Lecornu |
| Preceded by | Gérald Darmanin |
| Succeeded by | Laurent Nuñez |
| President ofThe Republicans | |
| Assumed office 18 May 2025 | |
| Preceded by | Éric Ciotti (2024) |
| President ofThe Republicans group in theSenate | |
| In office 7 October 2014 – 30 September 2024 | |
| Preceded by | Jean-Claude Gaudin |
| Succeeded by | Mathieu Darnaud |
| Senator forVendée | |
| Assumed office 1 October 2004 | |
| President of the Regional Council ofPays de la Loire | |
| In office 18 December 2015 – 13 September 2017 | |
| Preceded by | Jacques Auxiette |
| Succeeded by | Christelle Morançais |
| President of the General Council ofVendée | |
| In office 30 November 2010 – 1 April 2015 | |
| Preceded by | Philippe de Villiers |
| Succeeded by | Yves Auvinet |
| Member of theNational Assembly forVendée's4th constituency | |
| In office 26 November 1994 – 12 June 1997 | |
| Preceded by | Philippe de Villiers |
| Succeeded by | Philippe de Villiers |
| General councillor ofVendée for thecanton of Mortagne-sur-Sèvre | |
| In office 3 October 1988 – 1 April 2015 | |
| Preceded by | Gérard Brosset |
| Succeeded by | Cécile Barreau Guillaume Jean |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Bruno Daniel Marie Paul Retailleau (1960-11-20)20 November 1960 (age 65) |
| Party | The Republicans(2015–present) |
| Other political affiliations | Movement for France(1994–2010) Independent(2010–2012) Union for a Popular Movement(2012–2015) |
| Children | 3 |
| Alma mater | University of Nantes Sciences Po |
Bruno Daniel Marie Paul Retailleau (French:[bʁynodanjɛlmaʁipɔlʁətajo]; born 20 November 1960) is a French politician who served asMinister of the Interior and Minister of State in theBayrou government, as well as the precedingBarnier government from 2024 to 2025. In May 2025, he waselected president ofThe Republicans.
Retailleau represented theVendéedepartment in theNational Assembly from 1994 to 1997 asPhilippe de Villiers'ssubstitute and in theSenate since 2004. He presided over theSenate Republicans from 2014 to 2024. He also served asPresident of the General Council ofVendée from 2010 to 2015 andPresident of the Regional Council ofPays de la Loire from 2015 until 2017.
Following his appointment to the Barnier government, Retailleau was called its most influential figure.[1][2] He swiftly announced a series of measures to "re-establish order" in France,[3] which were met with some support and bolstered his position.[4][5] After the fall of the Barnier government and during the formation of the Bayrou government, Retailleau was "at the heart of the political equation".[6]
Ideologically, Retailleau is part ofThe Republicans' conservative wing.[7] He has been vocal on the topic of immigration, denouncing "the French by paper only" ("les Français de papier"),[7] French citizens of foreign origin who have never been socially integrated, and also said that France has been "dispossessed of the control" of its borders, in contemporary history.[8] Ahead of his appointment as Interior Minister, he called for "less immigration, more security".[9] He is seen as a rising star and presidential hopeful of LR, and has slammed Islamic headscarves as symbols of oppression, stressing the importance of protecting “the great conquests of the West.”[10] He has been criticized by political opponents and commentators for remarks perceived as racist and Islamophobic.[11][12]
Bruno Retailleau was born on 20 November 1960 inCholet,Maine-et-Loire, to parents who were grain merchants.[13][14][15] The eldest child in a family of four siblings, he grew up inSaint-Malô-du-Bois, a village in the bocage ofVendée, 7 kilometres away from where thePuy du Fou historical theme park, launched byPhilippe de Villiers, would eventually emerge.[16][17] Both his grandfather Lucien Retailleau and his father Michel Retailleau served as Mayors of Saint-Malô-du-Bois, respectively from 1959 to 1965, and from 1965 to 1983.[13]
Retailleau graduated fromSciences Po in 1985, after obtaining a master's degree in economics at theUniversity of Nantes.[15][18]
In 1985, he became deputy general manager of a local radio station, Alouette; from 1987 to 1994, he was general manager of the Sciencescom communication school, later integrated intoAudencia Business School.[19] When the Grand Parc du Puy du Fou corporation was created, which manages the theme park associated with the "Cinéscénie", he became first chairman of the board, as a close associate of De Villiers.[20]
A member of theMovement for France (MPF), founded by De Villiers, until 2010, Retailleau became theVendée general councillor for thecanton of Mortagne-sur-Sèvre in 1988, a position he retained until 2015.
Retailleau became thedeputy in theNational Assembly for the4th constituency of Vendée in 1994 upon the election of De Villiers as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP), a position he did not seek election to in the 1997 election, as De Villiers was running for his old seat.[19]
Instead, Retailleau joined theSenate in2004, where from 2014 he presided over theUnion for a Popular Movement group (renamed The Republicans group in 2015), after joining theUnion for a Popular Movement (UMP) of PresidentNicolas Sarkozy in 2012.
In 2010, he succeeded De Villiers as President of theGeneral Council of Vendée.
In the2015 French regional elections, Retailleau led a list inPays de la Loire with the support ofThe Republicans (LR) and theUnion of Democrats and Independents (UDI), which received over 42% of the second-round vote.
He supported theAéroport du Grand Ouest project.[21][22]
On 18 December 2015, he became President of theRegional Council of Pays de la Loire, an office he resigned from in 2017 to focus on his activities in the Senate.
Retailleau had held one of the regional council's vice presidencies from 1998 to 2004 underFrançois Fillon (until 2002) and Jean-Luc Harousseau.
In The Republicans'2016 primary, Retailleau endorsed former Prime MinisterFrançois Fillon as the party's candidate forPresident of France in the2017 election.[23] He subsequently joined Fillon's team as campaign coordinator.[24]
Ahead of The Republicans'2019 leadership election, Retailleau announced that despite speculation he would not run for the party presidency, callingChristian Jacob the "consensual" candidate.[25]
Ahead of the2022 presidential election, he announced he would also not run for the party nomination.[26] At The Republicans'primary in December 2021, he was part of the 11-member committee that oversaw the party's selection of its candidate in the upcoming election.[27]
On 2 September 2022, Retailleau announced his candidacy for the presidency of The Republicans.[28] In an internal leadership vote, he was eventuallydefeated byÉric Ciotti on 11 December 2022.[29] Despite working closely with Ciotti following the latter's election as party president, Retailleau sided against him amid the2024 The Republicans alliance crisis.[30]
In 2025, he decided torun again for the party presidency, this time as favourite in the polls, against former party presidentLaurent Wauquiez.[31] He secured 76% of the vote to defeat Wauquiez in the May 18 election[32]
On 21 September 2024, Retailleau was appointedMinister of the Interior in thegovernment of Prime MinisterMichel Barnier, succeedingGérald Darmanin.[33][34] His appointment marked a shift to the right;[35] shortly prior to his appointment, he had called for "less immigration, more security".[9]
Retailleau's first days as Interior Minister were marked by themurder of Philippine Le Noir de Carlan in Paris, by a Moroccan illegal immigrant,[36] who had previously been convicted of rape and imprisoned, but had not been deported following his release. After taking office, Retailleau proposed a number of measures to "take back control" of France's immigration policy,[37] which were met by favourable polls.[4] Ahead of introducing a bill on the subject, he demandedprefects order a "complete mobilisation" to "speed up the pace of deportations" of illegal migrants.[38]
His tenure and popularity made him "unavoidable" after the fall of the Barnier government, with speculations that he would be included in the next government.[5] He was thus retained byFrançois Bayrou when he succeeded Barnier, with Retailleau titled Minister of State.[39]
Retailleau states he belongs to a right-wing movement that does not compromise on its values.[40] A supporter of opposition to PresidentEmmanuel Macron's centrist politics, he refused any government agreement with Macron's party,Renaissance, in 2022.[41] In 2024, he joined theBarnier government, a centre-right coalition government which includes Renaissance.[42]
Regularly described as aliberal-conservative, Retailleau advocates major reforms of work, of the state and of the French social model, and calls for "a policy of civilisation" againstwokeism.[43][44][41][45] A proponent of a firmer response to security issues, Retailleau defends a "penal revolution" including measures such as the introduction of short prison sentences from the first acts of delinquency, lowering theage of criminal responsibility to 16 years, and suspending social and family benefits to parents who do not endorse their educational responsibilities.[46] Attached to national sovereignty, he regularly denounces the influence of jurisprudence such as that of theECHR, was opposed to theTreaty of Lisbon and refuses any federalist push within theEuropean Union.[41][47]
In 2019, advocating for "an intellectual refoundation" of the right, Retailleau aimed to give back an ideological corpus to his political family, calling on the right to seize new issues, such as environmentalism, to which he devoted a book.[48][49]
In March 2024, Retailleau voted against an amendment that enshrined abortion in the Constitution.[50]
Retailleau is a staunch opponent of immigration.[51] He has called for constitutional changes so a referendum can be held on the matter.[52] During one of the debates on an immigration bill in July 2024, which was introduced by his predecessorGérald Darmanin, he stated "immigration is not an opportunity for France."[53] In 2023, following theNahel Merzouk riots, Retailleau denounced a "regression towards the ethnic origins" of many rioters, adding that although they were French by citizenship, they were in his opinion not culturally so. He called citizens of foreign origin who lack integration "French by paper only" ("Français de papier").[7] His statements received a substantial amount of criticism.[54] He later stated that France had been "dispossessed of the control" of its borders, notably through European jurisprudence.[8]
Upon becomingMinister of the Interior in 2024, he ordered the deportation of undocumented immigrants from the overseas island ofMayotte to theDRC.[55][56][57] In an interview with French daily newspaperLe Parisien on 10 October, Retailleau stated his intention of tightening the amount of undocumented immigrants who can see their legal situation change, and be integrated into French society.[58][59]
In October 2024, Retailleau asked to renegotiate the 1968 agreement with Algeria, which governs immigration between Algeria and France.[60] In November 2024, he said he was in favour of its repeal, a result of the deterioration of relations between Algeria and France.[61]
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In a joint letter initiated byNorbert Röttgen andAnthony Gonzalez ahead of the47th G7 summit in 2021, Retailleau joined some 70 legislators from Europe, the US and Japan, in calling upon their leaders to take a tough stance on China and to "avoid becoming dependent" on the country for technology, includingartificial intelligence and5G.[62]
Following the2023 Nigerien coup d'état, Retailleau joined forces with fellow SenatorsChristian Cambon andRoger Karoutchi in an open letter to President Macron, published inLe Figaro, criticising France's Africa policy and arguing that the failure ofOperation Barkhane was mostly the reason why France and its economic, political and military presence had been rejected in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and the Central African Republic; the letter was signed by 91 other senators.[63][64]
In 2019, Retailleau wrote to the Israeli ambassador to France, demanding that Christians who live inGaza be allowed to travel toBethlehem andJerusalem forChristmas.[65]
Following theOctober 7 attacks and the ensuingGaza war, Retailleau expressed strong support forIsrael,[66] which has positioned him as an ally to Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu, echoing sentiments from France's right-leaning political factions.
Married to a medical doctor, Retailleau is the father of three children and is a practisingRoman Catholic.[67][68][69][70]
Passionate about horseback riding, Retailleau was spotted byPhilippe de Villiers while participating as a volunteer rider in the "Cinéscénie" show at thePuy du Fou.[71][18] The creator of the show, who'd quickly made him his second-in-command, later entrusted him with the staging of the Cinescénie for nearly 25 years.[72][73]
La partie commercialisation est en revanche assurée par un professionnel du marché des grains, en l'occurrence Michel Retailleau, dirigeant d'une graineterie familiale fondée par son père Lucien à Saint-Malo-du-Bois dans le canton de Mortagne-sur-Sèvre. La notabilité conférée par la profession de grainetier-semencier dans le monde agricole a d'ailleurs permis à Lucien Retailleau d'être élu maire de son village entre 1959 et 1965, mandat dans lequel lui a succédé son fils Michel lorsqu'est tourné le reportage de la télévision au silo de la CUMA en 1967, ce qui peut expliquer sa présence sur le tournage. Michel Retailleau va demeurer maire de Saint-Malo-des-Bois jusqu'en 1983, il est le père de Bruno Retailleau, élu président du Conseil régional des Pays-de-la-Loire en 2015 et président du groupe parlementaire des Républicains au Sénat en 2014 et président du Conseil général de Vendée de 2010 à 2015.
Interior ministers of theG20 | |
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