France’s right-wing heavyweight Bruno Retailleau to run for president in 2027
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A poll in January found that Mr Bruno Retailleau was the most popular possible right-wing candidate among supporters of his camp.
PHOTO: REUTERS
PARIS - A former interior minister of France who heads the country’s right-wing Republicans party, Mr Bruno Retailleau, announced on Feb 12 he will run in the 2027 presidential election, vowing to hold a referendum on the hot-button issue of immigration if elected.
Mr Retailleau, 65, is the latest heavyweight to join the race, in which current President Emmanuel Macron will not be running having reached his two-term limit.
“I have decided to run for president,” he said in a speech as he announced his candidacy, vowing “to refuse to leave our country in the state it is in today”.
“I don’t want to be president of the Republic out of an obsession of power, but sense of duty,” he added.
“To confront the world’s disorder, our country must first put its own house in order.”
Mr Retailleau, who stepped down as interior minister in October, is vying to reignite political momentum as the right’s natural presidential candidate with a tough-on-crime and anti-immigration stance.
Addressing his fellow party lawmakers in a letter seen by AFP earlier on Feb 12, Mr Retailleau said it was “a decision I have thought through carefully”.
“The time has come for my political family to show the French a new path, focused on order, prosperity, and French pride,” he wrote.
“I’m ready to lead this project, but this adventure can only be a collective one,” he said.
A poll in January found that Mr Retailleau was the most popular possible right-wing candidate among supporters of his camp.
Anti-immigrant stance
During his stint as interior minister from 2024 to 2025, he trumpeted a crackdown on irregular migration and drug trafficking.
He has also flirted with far-right rhetoric, making at times contentious comments, including once at a rally declaring “down with the veil” in reference to headscarves worn by Muslim women.
“I will be the president of law and order, of justice, and of French pride,” Mr Retailleau said Feb 12.
He vowed to use referendums as mechanisms to enact new legislation.
He would start with a vote “to drastically reduce immigration” because “beyond a certain number, a multicultural society always becomes a multi-conflict society”, he said.
Other referendums would include reforming the criminal justice system and would “restore the primacy of our national law whenever it is a matter of protecting our fundamental interests”, he said.
However, the French Constitution bars the use of referendums on matters related to immigration or justice.
The LR leader said he also intends to “rebuild our social model” while reducing government spending “by giving priority to the France of honest people and to work rather than to welfare dependency”.
He vowed to implement “bold family policy” and education reform to tackle inequality.
Centrist former prime minister Edouard Philippe
However, polls place far-right leader Marine Le Pen and her 30‑year‑old lieutenant Jordan Bardella at the top of the field ahead of the presidential election.
An appeals court ruling in a fraud case
If the court upholds a ban from office, Le Pen has said Mr Bardella would take her place.
A poll in November predicted that, should he run, Mr Bardella would win the second round of the 2027 election, no matter who stands against him. AFP
