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]

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]

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.