Retailleau launches presidential campaign with Sansal's support, vowing to 'put France right side up'

Bruno Retailleau, the Les Républicains (LR) candidate for the 2027 French presidential election, launched his campaign with a rally at the Parc Floral in Paris on Saturday. Thousands braved a heatwave, 4,400 chairs were set out and organisers claimed 6,000 attendees, to hear Retailleau promise to restore what he called a France that has been turned upside down under President Emmanuel Macron.

Rallying the faithful

Inside the air-conditioned venue, supporters waved French and Vendéen flags while chanting 'Bruno président!' and singing La Marseillaise. The senator for Vendée entered the hall shaking hands before taking the stage, where he paid tribute to the elected officials around him. Gérard Larcher, the Senate president, and former prime ministers Michel Barnier and François Baroin were among the front-row figures, as was Valérie Pécresse, whom Retailleau hailed as 'a loyal, a fighter'. The candidate insisted no other movement could gather as many deputies and senators, presenting LR as the natural home for the right.

We are going to lift France. We are going to put it right side up.

Taking on Macronism and the left

Retailleau directed his harshest words at the Macron era and Gabriel Attal, the Renaissance candidate. He mocked Attal's slogan 'tu casses, tu répares' (you break, you repair), originally coined when Attal was prime minister, as fit only for scolding misbehaving children and useless against 'barbarians' whom the police face. He also attacked Jean-Luc Mélenchon, accusing La France insoumise of promoting a 'new anti-Semitism that drinks at the sources of Islamo-leftism'. There was no mention of the National Rally.

That threat is for telling off children who have done silly things. But it won't frighten the barbarians our police and gendarmes have to deal with.

Sansal's high-profile endorsement

The rally's most eye-catching moment came with the presence of Boualem Sansal, the Franco-Algerian writer freed from nearly a year of detention in Algeria the previous November. Sansal, who sat in the front row to sustained applause, later said he would 'very probably' vote for Retailleau. For Retailleau, the occasion was a chance to distance himself from Macron's Algeria policy: as interior minister he had sought, unsuccessfully, to establish a 'balance of power' to secure Sansal's release. He called the author 'more than a symbol, a legend' and also demanded the liberation of journalist Christophe Gleize, still held in Algeria.

I will very probably vote for him.

Polls and party unity

Retailleau currently polls around 9–10 %, trailing both Édouard Philippe (Horizons) and Gabriel Attal. Nevertheless, he framed 2027 as 'the election of the last chance' and the most important presidential ballot in half a century, insisting he would see his bid 'through to the end'. A handful of senior LR figures, including Laurent Wauquiez, Xavier Bertrand and Jean-François Copé, stayed away, underlining the challenge of uniting the party behind him. Those present, however, depicted the meeting as a show of strength. Larcher said the day's purpose was 'to see that he is supported', given his desire for a single right-and-centre candidacy.

I am going to put my guts, my heart on the table. I am going to the end.