Shilling for the far-right

French senator Bruno Rétailleau was an early adopter of far-right talking points on immigration. Now he's been named Interior Minister.

Shill: “an accomplice of a confidence trickster or swindler who poses as a genuine customer to entice or encourage others.”

Perhaps no word better defines Bruno Rétailleau. A senator for France’s Les Républicains (or LR) party, Rétailleau was named Interior Minister in an 11th hour end of summer cabinet shuffle, replacing the center-right Gerald Darmanin (a former LR heavyweight who later joined President Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble party).

The swindler, of course, is the far-right. The well-dressed, glasses-wearing Rétailleau is their new accomplice.

Rétailleau is the perfect shill for the French far-right. He’s presentable, well-spoken, mondaine. A common sighting in France’s monarchy-nostalgic, ultra-Catholic circles, he joined politics as a protégé of hardliner Philippe de Villiers. Along with the rest of his political “family,” he joined the Manif pour tous protests against gay marriage, citing family values. Yet, in recent years he has been among the first to adopt far-right talking points, especially when it comes to immigration.

“Ensauvagement de la société française” — the idea that immigration is degrading French civilizational values and leading to high crime rates. Rétailleau was spouting this debunked theory in 2020.

“Laxisme migratoire” — a far-right talking point that claims Macron is “too soft” on migration. Rétailleau was one of the first members of his party to use this term.

“Décivilisation” — the claim that the left’s migration policy could lead to the downfall of the West. Also Rétailleau.

The most hard-line elements of the 2023 migration bill — including the suppression of medical aid for undocumented immigrants, stricter rules for family reunification and non-reversible deportation notices called OQTFs — owe much to Rétailleau and his ilk. (These elements of the bill were later removed after the a court ruled them unconstitutional.)

If you didn’t know it, you’d say Rétailleau was a member of Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, or National Rally.

So, how did we get here?

After a three-week snap election at the beginning of the summer, LR suddenly, unexpectedly, unfairly found itself as kingmaker in French politics — despite winning just 7 percent of the votes nationwide. Macron, who ostensibly held the snap elections in order to prevent the far-right from taking power, rejected left-wing Prime Minister candidate Lucie Castets, despite that coalition winning the highest number of seats. Facing a vote of no-confidence from the far-right, he chose to name a Prime Minister — Michel Barnier — who would placate Marine Le Pen’s party. (Macron’s government can do nothing without the RN, Le Pen’s protégé Jordan Bardella told reporters after Barnier’s nomination.)

And placate he has. Like his party’s, Barnier’s rhetoric has flirted with — and at times even surpassed — that of the far-right on migration. Almost immediately after his nomination, Barnier floated the idea of creating an immigration bureau to address the “migration crisis.” This idea was first presented, and unsuccessfully executed, by no other than Nicolas Sarkozy — former right-wing French president currently under investigation for multiple corruption scandals, including selling weapons to Libya’s repressive deposed leader Muammar Gaddhafi.

President Macron, too, has drifted dangerously into Le Pen territory. In consecutive national elections, Macron presented himself as a “bulwark” against the far-right, yet as French scholar Sébastien Fontenelle, has written, Macron has been an “on-ramp” for their ideology.

In France’s increasingly carnavalesque politics — to steal a term from the scholar of populism, Giovanni da Empoli — it’s not a surprise then that Rétailleau now holds the keys to the Interior Ministry at the Place Beauvau. In line with his new masters, he’s already eyeing a new, harsher immigration bill and a nationwide referendum on immigration while promising beefed up police presence at protests.

To put it another way, maybe more so than a shill, we’re looking at a wolf in sheep's clothing.