the essential
The Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau and his predecessor and new Minister of Justice Gérald Darmanin constitute a shock duo on the regalian which could quickly turn into a duel if a rivalry arises between the two heavyweights of the Bayrou government.
After the failed dissolution of which he is still one of the rare defenders, Gérald Darmanin, who remained Minister of the Interior for four years, suggested at the end of the summer – and while Emmanuel Macron was looking for his Prime Minister – that he wanted to take the field, to reflect within his movement “Popular! » and no longer necessarily be a minister. Unless the President asked him and unless it was the Quai d'Orsay that he had dreamed of since the ouster of Elisabeth Borne in January.
But at the end of September, it was Jean-Noël Barrot who was appointed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Gérald Darmanin became a simple deputy again, even renouncing to challenge Gabriel Attal for the presidency of the EPR group in the Assembly. During the transfer of power with his successor, the very right-wing senator LR Bruno Retailleau, Gérald Darmanin had to grit his teeth when the new minister repeated three times that his priority was to “restore order”, thus suggesting that it was the disorder that reigned until then.
A former top cop in France at Place Vendôme
Could it be this free dig coming from a man with whom he was in the same political family before joining Emmanuel Macron in 2017? Could it be the change of pace between the hectic agenda of a media minister and that of a deputy who has almost fallen back into anonymity? In any case, Gérald Darmanin made offers of services again this month, all the more easily since Prime Minister François Bayrou was looking for political heavyweights. And if he once again missed the Quai d'Orsay, Gérald Darmanin accepted to be appointed to the Ministry of Justice.
It is an understatement to say that the appointment of a former first cop of France at Place Vendôme made the magistrates cough, especially since Gérald Darmanin took the liberty of criticizing the requisitions of ineligibility against the chief of the deputies RN Marine Le Pen, judged in the affair of the European parliamentary assistants, and that he had previously participated in a demonstration of police officers in front of the Ministry of Justice where it was chanted that “the problem of police, it is justice. »
On the same line of firmness
Succeeding the pale but measured Didier Migaud who had taken over from the thunderous ex-lawyer Eric Dupond-Moretti, Gérald Darmanin therefore finds himself forming a duo with Bruno Retailleau with whom he shares some points in common. Both are on the same right-handed line of regal firmness; both are multiplied in the media as if their words were performative; both do not shy away from the shock formula, the words that strike the mind, calibrated for morning radio and social networks; both are republican but sometimes come dangerously close to the favorite themes of the extreme right; both have the 2027 presidential election in the back of their minds…
These two strong heads, these enemy brothers – who have in the past exchanged a few passes of arms on the fiasco of the Champions League final in 2022, on the immigration law or the XXL anti-drug operations – will now have to learn to work together, which does not exclude a rivalry which could transform the unexpected duo into a duel.
Darmanin multiplies the proposals
While since September Bruno Retailleau has largely occupied the field and the media – becoming the strong man of the right and worrying Laurent Wauquiez – Gérald Darmanin, as soon as he was appointed, resumed his habits and increased the number of announcements.
On December 25, he was at the Liancourt penitentiary center in Oise to promise to “clean the prisons” while ensuring his desire for “firmness” in the sentences handed down. The next day at 8 p.m. on TF1, the new Minister of Justice confirmed that he wanted to build centers specially adapted to short sentences, smaller prisons, on a human scale, inspired by what is done elsewhere in Europe. An unexpected proposal rather well received by the prison unions as well as by the general controller of places of deprivation of liberty Dominique Simonnot. While his appointment had angered certain feminist activists who criticized him for his past behavior with women, Gérald Darmanin announced his desire to extend police custody from 48 to 72 hours for suspects of aggravated sexual violence. He also indicated that he wanted to act on drug trafficking, an issue eminently shared with the Ministry of the Interior.
In a few days, Gérald Darmanin returned to the forefront, almost eclipsing the returning Manuel Valls and Elisabeth Borne. However, he will have to learn to manage his ministry which has a different culture than that of Place Beauvau and which is an authority and not just the prison ministry. He will also have to defend his budget, certainly on the rise but still below the European average.
Above all, Retailleau the Fillonist and Darmanin the Sarkozyst turned Macronist, will have to learn to be complementary rather than rivals. But the rivalry is brewing and in the latest Ifop poll, the two men are neck and neck…
