For his first steps as Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau set the tone on Monday: “Restore order, restore order, restore order.” But in the midst of a public finance crisis, police unions are waiting to find out what resources will actually be allocated.
“We must have the courage of firmness […] for the beaten-up schoolboy, for the raped young girl, for the grieving widow of the policeman, for our compatriots who, because of their origins, their skin colour, their beliefs, are threatened,” he hammered home in the courtyard of Beauvau, after the speech by his predecessor, Gérald Darmanin.
Criticism of “non-execution of sentences”
During the handover on Monday morning, the new LR minister outlined his “three priorities”: “The first, restore order. The second, restore order. The third, restore order.” “The French want more order, order in the streets, order at the borders,” added this figure of the conservative right, who takes a hard line on immigration. “Shame on those who instill hatred of our law enforcement in their speeches,” he said, promising that he would not “let it happen.”
On his first day at the Interior Ministry, he also continued to affirm that he intended to work against “ultra-violence” and largely pointed out “the non-execution of sentences”, calling for “a dialogue” with the new Minister of Justice, Didier Migaud.
The minister also assured, during the TF1 news, that he wanted to “take all means necessary […] to reduce immigration in France” and expressed his desire to “use (his) regulatory power to go to the end of what we can do” to reduce illegal immigration.
Unions want “resources”
Present at the handover, the leaders of the police unions said they were “in agreement” with the message of firmness displayed from the start, but were worried about possible budget cuts. “I have retained the priority, restoring order. That suits us well in terms of our will. But it must not be just a chin gesture. We need resources, personnel”, assured the secretary general of Un1té, Grégory Joron. There must also be “a tandem well aligned with the Minister of Justice”. “The priorities of the Minister of the Interior correspond to the famous shock of authority that we are asking of Alliance Police nationale”, declared the secretary general of this other union Fabien Vanhemelryck.
The unions are demanding that the budgetary commitments made be respected, and in particular the Interior Ministry’s Orientation and Programming Law (Lopmi), which provides for an increase in the ministry’s budget of 15 billion by 2027. So while waiting to be able to say more about the financial resources, the new minister went to meet the police on Monday evening, during his first trip, to the La Courneuve police station in Seine-Saint-Denis.