Highly symbolic transfer of power at the Ministry of the Interior, between two heavyweights responsible for embodying security. The president of the LR group in the Senate, Bruno Retailleau, took over from Gérald Darmanin on Monday, September 23, in the morning, at Place Beauvau. In a ten-minute speech, the senator from Vendée hammered home the line he will embody. “I have three priorities: restore order, the second restore order, the third restore order […] “When there is no order, it is freedom that is threatened,” he explained to the ministry’s executives.
A supporter of a discourse of “truth”, the new host of Beauvau considers that the French do not live “a vague feeling of insecurity”, but with “worrying statistics”, evoking victims of a “barbarity that has become almost daily”. “To these anonymous victims, the Republic owes firmness […] We must have the courage to be firm, to be justly firm, for the schoolboy who was beaten up, the young girl who was raped, for the grieving widow of the policeman, our compatriots who, because of their origins, skin colour, and beliefs, are threatened,” he pledged.
In the legislative elections, the “sovereign people” sent a request for the restoration of order “in the streets” and “at the borders”, according to the new minister
As a “democratic demand”, Bruno Retailleau intends to listen to “the sovereign people”, who expressed themselves in the legislative elections. “He sent a message that we must hear, without any sectarianism. Each election is worth the same democratic weight, this message is clear: the French want more order in the streets, more order at the borders”, he stressed, estimating that the demand “comes from the immense majority of the French”.
The top police officer in France also promised the thousands of civil servants in the ministry unwavering support. “For you, I will not give up, I will never give in, I will not tolerate any offense, any attack, physical obviously, it is so obvious, no more for verbal attacks […] Shame on those who instill hatred towards our law enforcement officers in their speech, it is shameful.
The new minister is aware of the magnitude of his task. “Everything is not going to happen with a magic wand. I will never tell stories to the French because the path to climb is steep and it will be hard. It cannot be done with a snap of the fingers. It cannot be done with a jab of the chin either. It will take perseverance, professionalism, and consistency too,” he said.
Gérald Darmanin, who had been in office at the Ministry of the Interior since July 2020, sent him “very sincerely” his “wishes for success”. “I know you have firmness. We are leaving the police in the hands of a man who loves the Ministry of the Interior,” he told his successor, promising to support him since ” [sa] “modest place” as a deputy. “Today I leave with the feeling of having served my country as best I could,” said the former mayor of Tourcoing, who also acknowledged that there were still “things to improve.” “Of course we made mistakes, but we did our best […] Obviously the security of the French must be further strengthened.”
“It is quite obvious that if my name had been Moussa Darmanin, I would not have been mayor and deputy”
The outgoing minister expressed his “emotion” by recalling the tragedies he had witnessed during his four years at the head of the police force. One of the most recent being the death of gendarme Eric Comyn following a refusal to comply in Mougins, in the Alpes-Maritimes. “I will never forget the faces of the injured, the widows, the parents, the children, who lost the love of their life behind a tricolour coffin.”
In his farewell speech to the civil servants and teams of the ministry, Gérald Darmanin also returned to his social ascension. “Double grandson of immigrants, son of a worker and a cleaning lady, there is no greater honor than to serve one’s country in such prestigious positions.” And to explain the choice of his parents not to have given him as a first name, that of his grandfather, an Algerian rifleman. “It is quite obvious that if my name had been Moussa Darmanin, I would not have been mayor and deputy and I probably would not have been Minister of the Interior.”
