This conservative right-wing intellectual had been one of the thinkers of the “national identity” defended by the former president during the 2007 presidential campaign.
The essayist and figure of the conservative right Patrick Buisson died at the age of 74, BFMTV learned from consistent sources, confirming information from Figaro.
Advisor to Nicolas Sarkozy during the presidential campaign and then at the Élysée, the man who began his career at the far-right weekly Minute in the 1970s before joining Valeurs Acteurs, cut his political teeth alongside Jean- Marie Le Pen.
One of the architects of Sarkozy’s victory
This history enthusiast then worked alongside Philippe de Villiers, whose European campaign he directed in 1994. Patrick Buisson took advantage of this period to promote “the union of the rights”, in other words a common candidacy of all the components of the right, from the RPR (the former name of the Republicans, Editor’s note) to the National Front via the center.
Being one of the few on the right to have repeatedly raised the possibility of the “no” victory in the referendum on the European constitutional treaty, he follows in the footsteps of Nicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior, in 2005.
Alongside Henri Guaino, he pushed the tenant of Place Beauvau to campaign for the Élysée on the theme of the “uninhibited” right. It is in particular he who will advise him to create a ministry of Immigration and National Identity.
Convicted in two cases
Once an advisor to the Presidency of the Republic, Patrick Buisson recorded hundreds of hours of meetings without the knowledge of the participants, starting with those with Nicolas Sarkozy. Certain private conversations during weekends at La Lanterne, the second home of the head of state, also leaked to the press.
Appointed boss of the History channel, he was sentenced in 2014 on appeal to pay 10,000 euros in damages to the former head of state and his wife. A year later, two journalists from Le Monde, Ariane Chemin and Vanessa Schneider, recount her political and ideological journey in The Bad Genius.
In 2016, while Nicolas Sarkozy was looking to make his big comeback in politics with a view to the presidential election, his former advisor was crushing him in The cause of the people. He describes a “small-time” politician, accusing him of having “forgotten the people” and criticizing the influence of Carla Bruni on her husband.
Support from Zemmour
Eight years later, the former eminence grise of the head of state was sentenced to two years in prison as well as a fine of 150,000 euros in the context of the Élysée polls affair.
After taking the side of François Fillon in 2017, Patrick Buisson officially supports Éric Zemmour during the last presidential campaign. The former journalist had been working on writing his memoirs for several months.
Marine Le Pen praised on X (formerly Twitter) “a man of great culture, a talented writer and a mad lover of France”.
Last April, he explained on BFMTV that he did not believe in his victory in 2027, judging that it had “a problem of political credibility”.