French interior minister is sign 'reactionary right' are in power, critics warn

The new French interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, has promised to "restore order" by cracking down on crime and immigration as critics on the left said the new government was leaning too far towards the "reactionary right".

- Angelique Chrisafis

Yesterday, as Michel Barnier's new cabinet began work after more than two months of unprecedented political crisis in France, Retailleau said: "The French people want more order - order in the streets, order at the borders."

Retailleau, a Catholic conservative who for years was a senator on the hardline wing of Nicolas Sarkozy's rightwing party, Les Républicains, has become the symbol of the new government's clear shift to the right.

Retailleau, 63, calls himself "unapologetically of the right" and in 2013 took to the streets in demonstrations to oppose same-sex marriage - alongside several other rightwing politicians now in government.

This year he voted against the inclusion of the right to abortion in the French constitution. In 2021, he opposed a bill to ban conversion practices that seek to suppress or "cure" a person's sexual orientation.

Last year, during unrest over the death of a teenager of Algerian heritage at a police traffic stop, Retailleau was criticised for saying there was a kind of "regression to ethnic origins" at play on the streets.