French Far Right Defends Retailleau, Describes Macron as a Failure

After Emmanuel Macron, the first man in the Élysée Palace, held his Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, responsible for the recent escalation with Algeria, known as the “diplomatic portfolio crisis”, and strong indications emerged of his exclusion from the government, the far right rushed to the controversial minister’s help, criticising what they described as Paris’s “subservience” to Algeria in the political and diplomatic crisis that has been escalating for more than a year.

The anti-Algerian movement within the French decision-making circles has enlisted the help of researcher and academic Jean-Thomas Lesueur, director of the Thomas More Institute, to defend the Interior Minister and his initial choice of a so-called “gradual response” to Algeria. The resulting outcome proved disastrous for Paris’ diplomacy and for the reputation of the French state as one of the most influential countries in the European Union.

Jean-Thomas Lesueur wrote an article in the Wednesday issue of Le Figaro titled “In dealing with Algeria, French diplomacy failed to understand that we had entered a new era.” Through this article, he attempted to convince the French that the damage inflicted on the French state in its crisis with Algeria was not due to the aggressive stance of Interior Minister Bruno Rotailleau toward all things Algerian, but rather to the weakness of his country’s foreign policy, which lacks a clear vision. He expressed surprise at the failure to apply the logic of force in the current crisis.

This alleged academic believes that Algeria and France are not on the same page. He refers here to France, which belongs to the great powers, and Algeria, which remains a third-world country. Based on this superficial and naive equation, he attempts to hold the French president’s administration accountable for its failure to manage the crisis with Algeria.

The director of the Thomas More Institute explains: “In the conflict between France and Algeria, some are worried about the strategy of ‘permanent tension’ imposed by Bruno Rotailleau, who sarcastically suggests that good feelings diplomacy has failed… Some in France, therefore, fear the consequences of the Interior Minister’s “hard line,” even at the Élysée Palace, where the President of the Republic cancelled a meeting with him on the Algerian issue on July 24. It is common knowledge that Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, and with him the Quai d’Orsay as a whole, are adopting a more conciliatory approach towards Algeria”.

Jean-Thomas Lesueur jumps to Rotailleau’s defence: “Listening to these advocates of prudence, we should never ‘break off dialogue.” But dialogue about what? Dialogue to what end? It’s a mystery. When Jean-Noël Barrot responds to Bruno Retailleau that “there is neither diplomacy of good feelings nor diplomacy of resentment. There is just diplomacy,” he doesn’t say much about the French vision and strategy regarding Algiers. We sense a sort of diplomatic business as usual, without direction, without red lines, fearful, which sees itself as its own end. A dialogue for the sake of dialogue, in short”.

Through these questions, he judges Macron’s policy toward Algeria a failure, because what he describes as “this lukewarm and weak behaviour does not produce tangible results.” He refers here to the Macron administration’s failure to resolve the case of Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, as well as that of sports journalist Christophe Gleizes. This failure, which was considered “humiliating impotence for France and the French is all the more bitter, a phrase previously used and inspired by the former French ambassador to Algeria, Xavier Driencourt, when he spoke about Paris’s apprehension about the strong presence of the Algerian community in France.

What the head of the right-wing think tank wanted to convey to the French public is that Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau is not responsible for the failure of French diplomacy in managing the crisis with Algeria, as many French politicians, most notably Macron himself, have asserted. This rescue came at a special time for Retailleau, whose days in the current government may be numbered, especially in light of the refusal of the Élysée Palace to receive him on July 24, a possible indication of a divorce between the two men.