Returning from his stronghold of Tourcoing (North), Gérald Darmanin has, this Monday, September 30, his heart still full of bitterness. The former Minister of the Interior has just given up his place in government to the very right-wing senator from Vendée Bruno Retailleau. But the former Republican (LR), a hated figure on the left, jokes about it off-microphone on the France Inter set where he is the guest on the morning show. “Did you see? Now I’m left-wing! »he smiles. In a few days the excesses and provocations of the former “Sarko Boy” who judged the leader of the National Rally (RN), Marine Le Pen, “a little soft” and complained about “wildness” of the country, seem very timid in view of the media outings of the new tenant of Place Beauvau.
Since his appointment, the former president of the LR group in the Senate has occupied space and minds. Not a day goes by without a major interview, a shocking announcement and a divisive statement. France is experiencing its “Retailleau moment”. Full-rimmed glasses, serious face and slender appearance, the elected representative of Vendée asserts here that “immigration is not an opportunity” (on LCI, September 29), where “the rule of law is neither intangible nor sacred” (au Sunday newspaper of September 29).
France’s first cop, the 63-year-old man previously little known to the general public, occupies the front pages of Parisianof Point like Figaro Magazine (of October 4), where he said he was in favor of “presumption of innocence for the police » and promises the overhaul of state medical aid, a basket of care for undocumented foreigners, into emergency medical aid. To justify, in his words, his “clear line” on immigration, inspired by the method of post-fascist leader Giorgia Meloni in Italy, and applauded by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. The minister, a conservative Catholic, claims to know “what the French want” and brushes aside all the criticism portraying him as an apostle of an old France. “It’s my style”he decides in The Parisian from October 10.
“He has a backbone”
Since Matignon, where instructions were given not to pay “ in the brawl », the multiple interviews of the Minister of the Interior are duly reread. And approved. “The Prime Minister and Bruno Retailleau are philosophically aligned”we swear at Place Beauvau. Certainly, Michel Barnier marks a distance from the attacks made by his minister against the rule of law, but he unblinkingly espouses, during the political program “L’Evénement”, on France 2, on October 3, the “line Retailleau.”
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