France's new government signals tough stance on migration

With no clear majority, the cabinet is widely viewed as one of the most fragile in decades

Bruno Retailleau arrives at the French Prime Ministers' official residence in Paris after being appointed as Interior Minister. EPA

After weeks of negotiations, France has a new government dominated by conservative right-wing figures.

Its line-up has triggered an avalanche of criticism both from the left and the far-right, which have described it as a continuation of President Emmanuel Macron's policies despite his bloc losing the latest parliamentary elections.

The most divisive new face is that of Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, 63, whose hardline position against immigration has reportedly caused unease even among Mr Macron's allies. Mr Retailleau, the current head of the right-wing The Republicans (LR) in the upper house Senate, is known for “order”, “authority” and “firmness”.

Mr Retailleau is also rumoured to have been chosen because he has no presidential ambitions for 2027 and is unlikely to use his new ministerial role as a launch pad for a campaign against whoever will become Mr Macron's political heir.

The same can be said of the new Foreign Affairs Minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, a relatively unknown figure who is expected to let Mr Macron continue steering foreign policy. While Mr Barrot is a centrist, other right-wing conservative figures include Education Minister Patrick Hetzel and Laurence Garnier, secretary of state in charge of consumption.

The new government, announced on Saturday, has been described as “having no future” by far-right leader Jordan Bardella, while leftist politician Jean-Luc Melenchon said it was a cabinet “of losers … in the hands of the worrying Minister of the Interior”.

With only 47 MPs out of 577, LR fared poorly in the election and came behind a left-wing coalition, Mr Macron's centrist group and the far-right. This did not stop Mr Macron from choosing a historic LR figure, Michel Barnier, 73, as Prime Minister – the argument at the Elysee Palace was that stability was the most important criteria and that a left-wing government would have been immediately toppled. With no majority backing it, the new government is widely viewed as one of the most fragile in decades.

Originally from the Vendee region, where he keeps chickens, sheep and a donkey, Mr Retailleau's political career was launched thanks to his heavy involvement in the local Puy du Fou theme park, one of the most popular in France. An avid horseback rider, he was spotted as a young man among the many volunteers who participate in lavish re-enactments of French history by the park's founder, Philippe de Villiers, an ultranationalist politician. The park has been described by its critics as an ideological weapon of pro-monarchy conservatives due to its loose rewriting of history.

Mr Retailleau's relationship with Mr de Villiers, who supported him in his successful campaign to become a politician at the age 33, has since soured and he left his political party in 2010 to join LR. A self-professed practising Catholic in a country where more than half the population says it is not religious, Mr Retailleau became the figurehead of LR's conservative wing and unsuccessfully campaigned against the legalisation of gay marriage and making abortion a constitutional right.

He was accused of racism by other politicians after he described the riots that spread in poor suburbs in July last year as a “sort of regression to ethnic origins” in an apparent reference to the North African and immigrant background of rioters. He repeated his comments despite criticism, saying that “falling back on one's origins, whether they are ethnic, religious or social,” is a “regression in relation to the universalist project of the [French] Republic, which promotes the transcendence of origins in favour of a single national community.”

Mr Retailleau has, for years, defended measures that go against the French constitution and are also supported by the far-right, including barring foreigners from access to social benefits and the obligation to file an asylum request at a consulate abroad and not on French territory, according to Le Monde.

However, he refused to follow LR's president Eric Ciotti when he rallied far-right politician Marine Le Pen before the July election, describing such a move as a “betrayal.” Traditional political parties normally shy away from alliances with the far-right due to its controversial anti-Semitic past, but its efforts to modernise its image and surging popularity have weakened such positions.