Xavier Bertrand: Has France’s centre-right found its new champion?
Xavier Bertrand could hardly be more different from Emmanuel Macron. The new standard-bearer for the centre-right in France is a hard-bitten career politician who has spent years, decades even, preparing for his tilt at the presidency. He knows where the bodies are buried. He will have buried some of them himself. And he is convinced that the time is ripe for a true professional to get his feet under the desk in the Salon Doré of the Élysée Palace.
Bertrand, who at the age of 56 is 13 years older than the current occupant of the Élysée, has been around for as long as most people can remember without ever imposing himself particularly on the public consciousness. He was appointed health minister by then President Jacques Chirac as long ago as 2005, going on to head the labour and social affairs ministry while simultaneously heading the campaign to secure the presidency for Nicolas Sarkozy.
When Sarkozy lost his bid for a second term in 2012, making way for the ill-fated Socialist, François Hollande, Bertrand decided not to waste time in opposition. Taking the traditional French route, he secured his election as mayor of Saint-Quentin, population 53,000, less than 30 miles from Macron’s home town of Amiens. By 2016, he had advanced to being President of the newly-created region of Hauts-de-France, which embraces not only Amiens, but Lille, Dunkirk and Calais, and it was in this capacity that he won re-election on Sunday, beating the pre-match favourite Marine Le Pen into second place and scattering the forces of Macron’s tribute band, La République en Marche.
Political parties are fluid in France. They come and go, reflecting mainly the vanities of those who happen to be in charge at any one time. Le Pen’s far-right movement, formerly known as the National Front, was re-born two years ago as Le Rassemblement National, or National Rally. The UMP (Union for a Popular Movement), dreamed up by Sarkozy, became Les Républicains, under which banner François Fillon fought the 2017 presidential election, only to be undone when he was caught with his hand in the till.
During the four years since Fillon’s fall from grace, the Republicans vanished almost as surely as the Socialists. Both historic factions having been steam-rollered by En Marche. Several pretenders stuck their heads out from time to time, only to pull back when confronted by their well-deserved anonymity and the sheer enormity of the task.
If Bertrand proves to be the leader who takes French conservatism back to what it regards as its rightful place at the head of the table – and it should be remembered that he has yet to be formally adopted – he will be hailed as a hero by Old School Conservatives. Not only will he have overcome Macron – a one-off phenomenon (“neither left nor right”), but he will have seen off the ever-threatening Le Pen, whose third attempt to win the top job now looks likely to end in failure.
The son of a banker from the Marne, north-east of Paris, Bertrand is very much his own man. For a start, he is a Protestant (one of just two million in France) and a practising Freemason. He has been married three times and has three children, including twins. In policy terms, he says he would impose strict quotas on immigration from outside the EU but has been careful to avoid obvious anti-immigrant or anti-Muslim rhetoric. He is keen, as a northerner, from the old coal and steel belt that straddles the border with Belgium, to attract big business and 21st century manufacturing to the region he heads, as well as to France in general, but has no illusions that this can be accomplished overnight.
At the ministry of health, he enacted no landmark legislation. He helped usher in reform of medical insurance and was in charge when the law banning smoking in public places was passed. On Europe, he moved from opposing the Maastricht Treaty to supporting the controversial European Constitution that, after being rejected by French voters, ended up as the Treaty of Lisbon. He has joined with the Greens to oppose draconian laws in the field of personal surveillance and backed the decision (later rescinded) by Hollande to sell an advanced assault ship to Russia.
More than anything, he is a nuts and bolts man, whose ideology is laced with pragmatism and a sense of what can be achieved without too much political bloodshed.
Bertrand is also shameless, as are all good politicians. On Sunday night, as he celebrated victory over the far-right and the pan-left, he spoke, in unabashed Gaullist terms, of “une certaine idée de la France,” to which, he said, he would always be faithful. Just what that idea is, beyond borrowing from the General, is unclear.
The far-right looks to have been headed off, at least for now; the Greens (big winners in last year’s city elections) are still finding their feet; the left is riven with different factions and the Macronistes seem to be distilling themselves into the person of Macron himself, shorn of party loyalty. But the Republican agenda has yet to be fixed.
As he heads towards next year’s presidential elections, Bertrand needs to spell out what it is he thinks he can accomplish that has so far eluded the arch-centrist Emmanuel Macron. France remains in the grip of Covid; its economy has shrunk and unemployment, real and hidden, is rising. At the same time, immigration, Islamist terrorism, health and education, to say nothing of the demand by ordinary voters for more money throughout their working lives and in retirement, continue to head up the nation’s political wish-list.
Of one thing, Bertrand can be sure. Macron is not ready to move out of the Salon Doré anytime soon. He wants a second term and will use all his considerable powers of persuasion and oratory to achieve it. For the incumbent, too, has a certain idea of France and can be relied on to fight tooth and nail to extend his entry in the history books. Nor has Marine Le Pen abandoned hope of a comeback closer to the time. Events could yet turn in her favour. But at least, to the surprise of many, the centre-right looks to have found its champion and the fight is on.