What was Gaullism? Yesterday’s smashing victory for Bruno Retailleau over Laurent Wauquiez for the presidency of Les Républicains can be viewed in many perspectives–in terms of its implications for the 2027 presidential election, for the survival of the once-powerful party of what used to pass for the center-right, for the prospects of the current government of the so-called socle commun, etc.–but it also marks the end of the line for a political family that likes to trace its origins to General de Gaulle and his particular brand of il gattopardismo, that is, the conservatism that recognizes that “in order for everything to remain the same, everything must change.” Translation: if traditional social hierarchies are to remain in place, traditional elites must adapt to changed conditions, alter their beliefs accordingly, and forge alliances with vital forces within society–alliances that may offend deeply held convictions.
Bruno Retailleau is no General de Gaulle. Of course, neither was Nicolas Sarkozy–nor, one could argue, Jacques Chirac or even Georges Pompidou. But each of those previous leaders of France’s center-right could claim to have had a vision of a social order worth defending and of a politics capable of defending it. Retailleau may be, as the cliché goes, le premier flic de France, not only ex officio and but also by temperament, but that’s all he is, He’s a small man who has now won quite handsomely a prize barely worth winning: the leadership of a party that has dwindled to une portion congrue of the electorate and that maintains its meager grip on power only as an appendage of la Macronie–this was Wauquiez’s only campaign theme, accurate as far as it went but without apparent purchase on the LR’s base–and by dint of a relentless equation of immigration with decline and decay that Wauquiez could only try to emulate and outbid (whether by proposing to exile immigrants to St.-Pierre-et-Miquelon, by integrating Eric Zemmour and his companion Sarah Knafo into the LR, or by advocating Renaud Camus’s Great Replacement).
Wauquiez, once the heir-apparent for LR leadership, was of course doomed the moment Eric Ciotti, his erstwhile sponsor and political godfather, jumped ship to join the RN, where many of the LR’s erstwhile voters had preceded him.
Retailleau came from a different quarter of the French right, with roots in the ultra-nationalist and anti-Gaullist camp of the latter-day Vendéen Philippe de Villiers, whom he served as substitut before attaching himself to the doomed candidacy of François Fillon. His well-publicized and zealous flicage has made him popular enough to fuel talk of a possible presidential candidacy, although it has to be said that something about his demeanor suggests that he will find it difficult to achieve that elusive and mysterious incarnation that the French often invoke as the sine qua non of a président de la République. Other rumors have him forming a “ticket” with the more centrist Édouard Philippe, who would agree in advance to take Retailleau on as prime minister if elected. It was this specter of a centriste-flicquiste alliance that Wauquiez chose to denounce as the central theme of his campaign. It didn’t work: nearly 76% of LR’s base preferred “Bruno” to “bullshit” (Wauquiez famously let slip that he constructed his public persona by feeding “bullshit” to the media, thus raising the question of whether anything he said could be taken to represent his true convictions, if any).
Does any of this matter? Well, it might, depending on how the murky mess of France’s current tripartite division evolves over the next two years. The next French presidential race will likely have three main contenders for the two slots permitted in the second round: an RN candidate (Le Pen if she escapes her current condemnation to become eligible or Bardella or someone else if she doesn’t), a center-right candidate (Philippe, Attal, or ?), and on the far left Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Many voters would regard a confrontation of RN vs. LFI as a doomsday scenario, The centrist candidate will therefore try to peel off support for the RN in the first round by pointing to this possible outcome, and the support of Retailleau and Wauquiez may therefore count. This is the sad state to which French politics has been reduced by Macron’s fateful decision to dissolve parliament. Or was it rather by deeper structural forces? I tend to go with the latter. In any case, this is how things stand. It is too late for The Leopard. Things can no longer remain as they were.