Bruno Retailleau

Bruno Daniel Marie Paul Retailleau (French pronunciation: [bʁyno danjɛl maʁi pɔl ʁətajo]; born 20 November 1960) is a French politician who has presided over The Republicans group in the Senate since 2014. He has represented the Vendée department in the Senate since 2004. Retailleau also served as President of the General Council of Vendée from 2010 to 2015 and President of the Regional Council of Pays de la Loire from 2015 until 2017.

Bruno Retailleau
President of The Republicans group
in the Senate
Assumed office
2 October 2014
Preceded byJean-Claude Gaudin
Senator for Vendée
Assumed office
1 October 2004
President of the Regional Council
of Pays de la Loire
In office
18 December 2015 – 13 September 2017
Preceded byJacques Auxiette
Succeeded byChristelle Morançais
President of the General Council of Vendée
In office
30 November 2010 – 2 April 2015
Preceded byPhilippe de Villiers
Succeeded byYves Auvinet
Member of the National Assembly
for Vendée's 4th constituency
In office
26 November 1994 – 12 June 1997
Preceded byPhilippe de Villiers
Succeeded byPhilippe de Villiers
Personal details
Born
Bruno Daniel Marie Paul Retailleau

(1960-11-20) 20 November 1960
Cholet, France
Political partyThe Republicans (since 2015)
Other political
affiliations		Movement for France (1994–2010)
UMP (2012–2015)
Alma materUniversity of Nantes
Sciences Po

Early life and education

Son of a grain merchant, he was born on 20 November 1960 in Cholet, Maine-et-Loire.[1][2]

Elder of a family of 4 children, he grew up in Saint-Malô-du-Bois, a village in the bocage of Vendée, 7 kilometers from where the Puy du Fou historical theme park will emerge.[3][4]

Retailleau graduated from Sciences Po in 1985, after a master's degree in economics at the University of Nantes.[2][5]

Professional career

In 1985, he became deputy general manager of a local radio station Alouette, then, from 1987 to 1994, general manager of the Sciencescom communication school, later integrated into the Audencia Business School.[6]

When the Grand Parc du Puy du Fou corporation was created, which manages the theme park associated with the "Cinéscénie", he became its first chairman of the board.[7]

Political career

Early beginnings

A member of the Movement for France (MPF) until 2010, Retailleau became the Vendée General Councillor for the canton of Mortagne-sur-Sèvre in 1988, a position he retained until 2015.

Member of the National Assembly

Retailleau became the member of the National Assembly for the fourth constituency of Vendée in 1994 upon the election of Philippe de Villiers as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP), a position he did not seek election again in the 1997 election, as De Villiers was running for his old seat.[8]

Member of the Senate

Instead, Retailleau joined the Senate in 2004, where he has been serving as chairman of the Republicans' group since 2014. In 2010, he succeeded De Villiers as President of the General Council of Vendée. In 2012, he joined the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).

President of the Regional Council of Pays de la Loire

In the 2015 regional elections, Retailleau led a list in Pays de la Loire with the support of The Republicans (LR) and the Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI), which received over 42% of the vote in the second round. He supported the Aéroport du Grand Ouest project.[9][10] On 18 December 2015, he became President of the Regional Council of Pays de la Loire, an office he resigned from in 2017 to focus on his activities in the Senate.

In the Republicans' 2016 primaries, Retailleau endorsed François Fillon as the party's candidate for the 2017 French presidential election.[11] He subsequently joined Fillon's team as campaign coordinator.[12]

Right-wing primary

Ahead of the Republicans' leadership election in 2019, Retailleau announced that he would run for the position as the party's chair.[13] He gave up on his candidacy in August 2021.[14]

At the Republicans’ national convention in December 2021, Retailleau was part of the 11-member committee which oversaw the party's selection of its candidate for the 2022 presidential elections.[15]

Candidate for the presidency of the Republicans

On September 2, 2022, Retailleau announced his candidacy for the presidency of The Republicans party. In an internal vote,[16] he was eventually defeated by Éric Ciotti on 11 December 2022.[17]

Political positions

Domestic policy

Retailleau claims to belong to a right wing that assumes its values.[18] A supporter of a clear opposition to Emmanuel Macron, he refuses any government agreement with him.[19]

Regularly described as a liberal-conservative, Retailleau advocates major reforms of work, the state and the French social model, and calls for "a policy of civilization" against woke indoctrination.[20][21][19][22] A proponent of a firmer response to security issues, Bruno Retailleau defends a "penal revolution" including measures such as the introduction of short prison sentences for the first acts of delinquency, the lowering of the age of criminal majority to 16 years and the suspension of social and family aid for parents who do not assume their educational responsibilities.[23] Attached to French sovereignty, he regularly denounces the influence of European jurisprudence such as the ECHR, was opposed to the Treaty of Lisbon and refuses any federalist rush to the European Union.[19][24]

Advocating for "an intellectual refoundation" of the right, Retailleau aims to give back an ideological corpus to his political family and calls on the right to seize new issues such as environmentalism, to which he has devoted a book.[25][26]

Foreign policy

In a joint letter initiated by Norbert Röttgen and Anthony Gonzalez ahead of the 47th G7 summit in 2021, Retailleau joined some 70 legislators from Europe, the US and Japan in calling upon their leaders to take a tough stance on China and to "avoid becoming dependent" on the country for technology including artificial intelligence and 5G.[27]

Following the 2023 Nigerien coup d'état, Retailleau joined forces with fellow Senators Christian Cambon and Roger Karoutchi on an open letter to President Macron in Le Figaro, critizicing France's Africa policy and arguing that the failure of Operation Barkhane was in great part the reason why France and its economic, political and military presence have been rejected in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and the Central African Republic; the letter was signed by 91 other Senators.[28][29]

Personal life

Married to a medical doctor, Retailleau is the father of three children.[30]

Passionate about horseback riding, Retailleau was spotted by Philippe de Villiers while participating as a volunteer rider in the "Cinéscénie" show at the Puy du Fou.[31][5] The creator of the show, who quickly made him his second in command, later entrusted him with the staging of the Cinescénie for nearly 25 years.[32][33]

Bibliography

Books
  • Retailleau, Bruno (August 23, 2010). Les entreprises de taille intermédiaire au coeur d'une nouvelle dynamique de croissance (in French). Paris: La Documentation Française. p. 170. ISBN 978-2110081629.
  • Retailleau, Bruno (March 20, 2019). Refondation (in French). Paris: Éditions de l'Observatoire. p. 288. ISBN 979-1032906286.
  • Retailleau, Bruno (October 21, 2021). Aurons-nous encore de la lumière en hiver ? (in French). Paris: Éditions de l'Observatoire. p. 140. ISBN 979-1032924266.

References
  1. "Les confidences de François Fillon à l'heure de passer le témoin à Bruno Retailleau". LEFIGARO (in French). 2017-11-17. Retrieved 2022-11-07.
  2. "Bruno Retailleau - Who's Who". www.whoswho.fr (in French). Retrieved 2022-11-07.
  3. Beaucarnot, Jean-Louis (2022). Le tout politique 2022 : [origines, cousinages, personnalités] : [la face cachée de nos politiques] (Nouvelle édition ed.). Paris: l'Archipel. ISBN 978-2-8098-4338-5. OCLC 1319654805.
  4. "Le guide des mardis de l'Essec" (PDF). 2021-01-19.
  5. "Pays de la Loire: Bruno Retailleau au scanner". LExpress.fr (in French). 2016-06-07. Retrieved 2022-11-07.
  6. "Histoire de la radio locale Alouette". schoop.fr (in French).
  7. magazine, Le Point (2014-10-02). "Bruno Retailleau, du Puy-du-Fou, à la tête des sénateurs UMP". Le Point (in French). Retrieved 2022-11-08.
  8. "Une élection législative partielle M. Retailleau succède à M. de Villiers en Vendée". Le Monde.fr (in French). 1994-11-29. Retrieved 2022-11-08.
  9. (in French) "Découvrir Bruno Retailleau". Archived from the original on 2015-10-09. Retrieved 2015-09-22.
  10. (in French) "Retailleau: " La ZAD de Notre-Dame-des-Landes est le symbole de l'affaissement de l'Etat "". Public Sénat. 15 December 2015. Retrieved 2016-01-08.
  11. Ludovic Vigogne (20 April 2016), Primaire à droite: la liste des premiers soutiens parlementaires L'Opinion.
  12. Brian Love (22 March 2017), Fillon camp decries "soap opera" of sleaze reports a month from French election Reuters.
  13. Simon Carraud (19 June 2019), Retailleau abandonne l'idée de briguer la présidence de LR Reuters.
  14. "Présidentielle 2022 : Bruno Retailleau renonce à sa candidature". Le Point (in French). 2021-08-27. Retrieved 2022-11-08.
  15. Ludovic Vigogne (12 October 2021), Congrès LR: après le oui de Bertrand, les choses sérieuses commencent L'Opinion.
  16. "Bruno Retailleau: "Je serai candidat à la présidence des Républicains"". LEFIGARO (in French). 2022-09-02. Retrieved 2022-11-08.
  17. "Éric Ciotti élu face à Bruno Retailleau à la présidence de LR". Le Huffington Post (in French). Retrieved 11 December 2022.
  18. "Bruno Retailleau : " Depuis 30 ans, la droite n'a pas suffisamment assumé les valeurs de droite "". Public Senat (in French). 2022-04-05. Retrieved 2022-11-08.
  19. "Le candidat à la présidence de LR Bruno Retailleau au JDD : " Je veux tout changer à droite "". lejdd.fr (in French). Retrieved 2022-11-08.
  20. "Bruno Retailleau creuse son sillon à droite". Les Echos (in French). 2019-03-20. Retrieved 2022-11-08.
  21. Albertini, Dominique. "Bruno Retailleau : "Dire que la France souffre du libéralisme, c'est une mauvaise plaisanterie"". Libération (in French). Retrieved 2022-11-08.
  22. Chiecchi, Jérôme Cordelier, Mégane (2021-04-17). "Bruno Retailleau : " Notre pays est majoritairement à droite "". Le Point (in French). Retrieved 2022-11-08.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  23. "Bruno Retailleau : " Si nous n'enclenchons pas une révolution pénale, nous aurons une insurrection électorale "". LEFIGARO (in French). 2021-03-11. Retrieved 2022-11-08.
  24. "Bruno Retailleau: "L'Europe des petites cuisines et des grandes dépendances"". LEFIGARO (in French). 2020-07-23. Retrieved 2022-11-08.
  25. Dupont, Laureline (2019-03-28). "Bruno Retailleau, les idées à l'endroit". Le Point (in French). Retrieved 2022-11-08.
  26. Vernay, Stephane (2019-03-28). [ENTRETIEN. « La droite a une légitimité sur l’écologie », affirme Bruno Retailleau (ouest-france.fr) "" La droite a une légitimité sur l'écologie ", affirme Bruno Retailleau"]. Ouest France (in French). Retrieved 2022-10-24. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)
  27. Stuart Lau (January 25, 2021), G7 lawmakers tell leaders to ‘stand up’ to China Politico Europe.
  28. «Après la Françafrique, sommes-nous condamnés à l'effacement de la France en Afrique ?» Le Figaro, 7 August 2023.
  29. Gavin Mortimer (9 August 2023), Macron can’t escape blame for France’s failures in Africa The Spectator.
  30. Grépinet, Mariana (2017-04-26). "" Les révélations de la campagne "". Paris Match (in French): 32–33.
  31. "Bruno Retailleau, passionné d'équitation". LEFIGARO (in French). 2018-08-17. Retrieved 2022-11-07.
  32. Emery, Audrey (2015-05-18). "Régionales 2015 : la face cachée de Retailleau". Le Point (in French). Retrieved 2022-11-07.
  33. "" Retailleau a été metteur en scène de la Cinéscénie "". ouest-france.fr (in French). 2015-12-10. Retrieved 2022-11-07.
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