"The France of honest people": Bruno Retailleau and LR recycle their old obsessions and deny racism in France

Bruno Retailleau knows how to lose a presidential election. In 2017, he was François Fillon's campaign coordinator, to whom he remained loyal even when the Sarthe native's chances of victory were shattered by the Penelope affair. Ironically, or as a way of warding off fate, the new president of the Les Républicains party is framing his race for the Élysée around a slogan: "The France of honest people."

Instead, he wants to draw inspiration from another "honest" member of his ranks, Nicolas Sarkozy, who won in 2007. He took over the Ministry of the Interior to gain media exposure, then took control of the right-wing party to put the machine to work for him: Bruno Retailleau chose the same method. This was also the purpose of the National Council of the LR, which was held this weekend and saw its president endorse the new organizational chart of a party ready for the municipal elections and, above all, the 2027 presidential election.

In his speech, the movement's new president elaborated on what he meant by "honest people." This has nothing to do with the virtue of Fillon and Sarkozy; for Bruno Retailleau, this is an archetypal, caricatured right-wing voter. Even the far-right. "The France of honest people is the France that works, that works hard, that gets up early, and that pays cash, every time, the price of welfare," he began.

"The France of honest people is the one that is fed up with the discrediting of French history, with the perpetual penance inflicted on our country. The France of honest people does not sully its history," he continued, before concluding, to applause: "The France of honest people is, truly, absolutely fed up with being accused of pseudo-racism, of imaginary racism. It is fed up with victim-driven wokeness."

Being honest, for Bruno Retailleau, means refusing to see that more than 9 million people in France live below the poverty line, due to low wages that the right refuses to increase or social assistance that barely allows people to keep their heads above water.

It is a refusal to acknowledge the actions of the French state in its colonies, as if everything in its history was nothing but glory and goodness. It is a refusal to measure the climate of xenophobic hatred which has led, in recent weeks, to the murders of Aboubakar Cissé and Hichem Miraoui .

Designating the left as his "main adversary" and without ever mentioning the National Rally - except by calling on activists not to "mistake their adversary" - Bruno Retailleau promises to base his campaign on right-wing outbidding.