Can an oxymoronic campaign slogan help propel a conservative French politician to the presidency? Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s “change in continuity” in 1974 and Nicolas Sarkozy’s “quiet rupture” in 2007 suggest it can. Bruno Retailleau, leader of the right-wing Les Républicans (LR), is now betting that “reasonable radicalism” can win over voters. Officially endorsed by his party as its candidate for the 2027 presidential election on Sunday, April 19, Retailleau is using “radicalism” to signal a break from nearly a decade of Emmanuel Macron’s politics, while “reasonable” is meant to set him apart from the far-right Rassemblement National (RN). “I am not a demagogue,” he recently said.
That claim has come under scrutiny after he made a more radical-than-reasonable comment targeting Spain. Speaking on French television on Monday night, Retailleau said he wanted to ostracize Spain from the rest of the European Union.
Retailleau justified this stance by pointing to Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s plan to regularize half a million undocumented migrants to support Spain’s economy. “We cannot tolerate such a massive regularization,” Retailleau argued. He went even further, promising to “reinstate border controls” with Spain if elected in 2027.
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