After losing the absolute majority in the June legislative elections, Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin learned some lessons from the electoral cycle and announced that the funds allocated to security will be increased by 1.25 billion euros next year. In terms of immigration, he wants the conditions that apply to the expulsion of convicted foreigners to be relaxed.
In the absence of an absolute majority in the Assemblée Nationale, the executive says it wants to find its majority "bill by bill." Does this mean that you'll spend the whole five years negotiating with the opposition?
It's true that we don't have an absolute majority, but we do have an absolute duty to act. We must listen to what the French have told us: They re-elected the president and they wanted an Assemblée Nationale that would support him, but with a culture of compromise. This does not mean a culture of inaction. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne weighed her words carefully when she said, "A majority in confidence must built." By talking with the oppositions, bill by bill, we will get there.
Except that, for the time being, no one is sure how to keep the country from being blocked...
On Wednesday, the head of government reached out twice to the oppositions, during her government policy statement in the Assemblée Nationale and then in the Sénat. Across the aisle, I heard Marine Le Pen of the Rassemblement National (RN, far right) and Mathilde Panot of La France Insoumise (LFI, left) respond with insults. But other group leaders outside the majority said they wanted the country to move forward. This is the case for Les Républicains (LR, right) MP Olivier Marleix. The same goes in the Sénat with the centrist Hervé Marseille, along with Bruno Retailleau (LR) and even Patrick Kanner of the Parti Socialiste (PS).
Apart from the two extremes, the reaction of the governing parties suggests that compromises can be found. Let's give time some time, as President François Mitterrand used to say.
Right now, is your preferred ally the right?
Since it would be neither desirable nor acceptable to make alliances with the RN and LFI, we must find a compromise with the governing parties. There are some on the right and some on the left. Because even if their voters probably didn't chose the presidential majority in the legislative elections, they did not choose to block it either. That means there is the possibility of having conversations about a variety of topics and finding common ground.
When I propose increasing the number of police officers, for example, I don't think that any member of the LR left or the LR right is against it. And we have to realize that the LR has more members in the Assemblé and they have the majority in the Sénat.
How can they be convinced?
The important thing at the current political moment is to show the public that the government has humbly listened to the election results and is reaching out to the opposition. Faced with proposals for economic, social, sovereign or ecological progress, the Parliament must follow common sense in a culture of compromise. If our bills are not accepted or if we are spat upon, everyone will see that the block is coming from the opposition, in a form of unhealthy revenge.
Ms. Borne did not ask for a vote of confidence from the deputies after her government policy statement. Is this an admission of weakness?
If the prime minister had started out by telling the oppositions at the very beginning – even though we hadn't discussed a single bill yet – "it's either this or I'm leaving," that would undoubtedly have led to a useless and somewhat arrogant power struggle!
Many governments have been in this situation of relative majority and this has not prevented them from getting great political, economic or institutional advances passed.
Was this feeling of arrogance a sin of Mr. Macron's first term with which we must break, along with the idea of vertical power that doesn't listen much to the opposition?
The French are a very political people who know what they are doing. By giving the president a majority, but not an absolute majority, they have shown that there are undoubtedly some things to be corrected, a certain number of things linked to our plans, some of the ways we behaved.
I have always said that we should, as Emmanuel Macron has asked, have more human touch and contact in our politics. At the time, I was laughed two years at when ago I said, "We need more bistros and less videoconferencing."
And you still think so?
Yes, it is important that empathy and understanding are as strong as reason and technique. Demagogs rely only on emotion. But relying only on rationality sometimes means being distant from what forms the heart of politics, that is to say, the people.
[LFI leader] Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen speak to the heart of people. In the majority, we must also speak to them right in the heart, but differently. They divide and exploit fears. We must rely on positive emotion, empathy, listening. That's politics. The president does this very well. If the government parties don't do it, it will leave a huge opening for the extremes and will pave the way for a populist change in power in the country.
You have called the RN, and the LFI, too, "enemy" parties. In that case, why did members of the majority vote for far-right candidates when they elected the vice president of the Assemblée Nationale?
Five years ago, I left my political family [LR] because I was scandalized that it was unable to choose between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. I didn't do it to turn around and have discussions with the Front National's (former name of the RN) elected officials, or to vote with them and accept the normalization of Marine Le Pen. If we do that, if we accept that the RN is a party like any other, then we will no longer have political arguments to prevent a populist rise in power.
It's very important that the lines are clear between the parties that have a culture of respect for the Republic and those that do not.
Doesn't putting the RN and LFI on the same level amount to downplaying the danger of the extreme right?
Between the one that considers foreigners to be inherently evil and the other that says "the police are killers," it is clear that both the far right and the far left are dangerous.
Moreover, the extremes come together during elections. Just look at the electoral maps. You can see the porous nature of their electorate. Or their lack of voting for républicain (with esteem for the Republic) candidates, in the broadest sense of the term. Quite frankly, Mathilde Panot's speech at the Assemblée National on Wednesday was as outrageous as Marine Le Pen's.
Your scope has been expanded. You are now in charge of overseas territories. Why isn't there a full and complete ministry, one that is above all independent from the ministry of the interior?
Under Lionel Jospin [prime minister under President Jacques Chirac], the overseas territories were associated with the interior. Being attached to the Ministry of the Interior, which is the ministry of territorial solidarity, the beating heart of the Republic, allows the overseas territories to be connected to a ministry with significant political weight. This allows them to obtain more means.
I will be assisted by Jean-François Carenco, who will be a great deputy ministry for overseas France. He is a man with both heart and character. Together we will be a positive force for the overseas territories.
The loi d'orientation et de programmation du ministère de l'interieur (LOPMI, a law for the reorganization of the Ministry of the Interior) is your big project, with an announced budget of 15 billion euros over five years to modernize the police. The Cour des comptes (the Court of Audit) has criticized the "lack of credibility" associated with these figures. Is the financing now secure?
Yes, there will be an increase of 1.25 billion euros for the Ministry of the Interior next year in the budget bill, in addition to the budget allocated to overseas and local authorities. This is a truly considerable step forward, but in return, the ministry must modernize. That's what we're doing: In two years, 4,000 police officers and gendarmes have been put back on the street through civilian replacements. We will keep the president's promise to double the forces on the ground in 10 years.
We are also going to create 200 new gendarmerie brigades, 11 mobile force units and 3,500 investigation assistants – civilian personnel who will perform some of the procedural work done today by the field staff: meeting with lawyers, filling out certain documents, etc.
And then there is the internet, which has totally transformed crime. Out of the 15 billion euros planned for by the LOPMI, more than half will be dedicated to digital issues. All these measures will be presented in the fall.
You say that you want to seek support, especially on the right, to get this law adopted as broadly as possible, but LR does not seem to hear you.
We are ready to talk, make amendments and find compromises with LR, the centrists and even part of the left, as long as it doesn't distort the law. We are ready to take up a certain number of proposals such as Bruno Retailleau's (LR) anti-vandalism law or, in terms of immigration, to consider the conclusions of the excellent Buffet Report (LR), which was unanimously approved in the Sénat.
Which ones?
Currently, a foreigner who has committed serious acts cannot be deported if he or she meets certain conditions, such as having arrived on the national territory before the age of 13. Let me be clear: We want to allow for the expulsion of any foreigner who has been found guilty of a serious act by the courts, regardless of the condition of his or her presence in the national territory. I think that this is something that corresponds to the sovereign agenda that the president presented to the French.
We are, in fact, at 2,761 foreigners with criminal records deported since I became minister of the interior; 60% of them had been in prison. That's a fivefold increase over the numbers from previous years. In six months, we have increased deportations by 27%. We are at nearly 7,000. We are being firm.
But why revisit to a topic that didn't interest the French during the presidential election?
Because I am responsible for several public policies, including arrivals, integration, access to French nationality and deportation of illegal foreigners. We still need to improve a certain number of things in the follow-up for integration and arrival, but, whatever a person's skin color, religion [or] country of origin, a foreigner who does not respect the Republic must be deported. We treat foreigners for what they do, not for what they are, unlike the RN.
The government has gone back on its idea of not repatriating wives and children of jihadists from the Iraqi-Syrian zone. How will you follow up on these "returnees"?
First, children are subject to strong and appropriate support measures. Repatriated adults are detained and brought before judges as soon as they arrive on French soil. As for their follow-up, without going into detail, I can assure you that the Ministry of the Interior has allocated very significant additional resources to the direction générale de la sécurité intérieure [DGSI, Directorate General for Internal Security], at the request of the head of State.
Another reform underway plans to place all the police services in each department under the authority of a single head. This worries the investigators of the judicial police (PJ), who fear losing their autonomy.
This major reform, which Pierre Joxe [minister of the interior from 1984 to 1986 and from 1988 to 1991] had worked for, had been stalled for 30 years. It is now underway and will be completed in 2023. I am ready to continue to listen and to modify a certain number of things. But it is time for the national police force to stop working separately, with a different head for the Compagnies républicaines de sécurité (CRS, police for general security missions and crowd control), for the PJ and for public safety in each department. A single person in charge will be simpler for elected officials [and] for the prefect in the relationship between the police and the gendarmerie, and better public service will be provided. This will also allow us to pool a certain number of resources. But there will always be a large judicial police force in France; we are not working against [prime minister Georges] Clemenceau, who founded it. We are simply modernizing it.
After the fiasco at the Stade de France, don't you think that mistakes were made in the security management of the event? How do you plan to regain credibility before the 2024 Olympic Games?
We'd obviously missed something. We probably had too many people for law enforcement and not enough to fight crime. I have personally drawn all the necessary conclusions and I have asked to triple the number of BAC [anti-crime brigades] and public safety personnel in Saint-Denis during major events [which take place at the Stade de France]. In fact, three major matches have taken place in the stadium since the Champions League final and nothing problematic has happened.
What about the fate of the Paris prefect of police, Didier Lallement, who said he assumes "full responsibility for police management"?
The prefect of police is at his post. And he has my full confidence in his work.
In 2027, Emmanuel Macron will not be able to run again. Are you part of those who are positioning themselves to follow in his footsteps?
If I may say so, this question is inappropriate. The question of who will follow in the president's footsteps, when he has just been re-elected, is absolutely not on the agenda. My energy is entirely focused on the success of this term because it will be our collective success. In the majority, no one will succeed in 2027 if the president has not succeeded in his term. Neither his former prime ministers, nor his former ministers, nor his former MPs. Everyone knows this.
Damien Abad (who briefly served as minister of solidarity) had to leave the government without being convicted by the courts, based on simple accusations of rape. You have also been the subject of such accusations. Three cases have been dismissed, two after a police investigation and one after a judicial investigation, And yet you have always remained a minister. Why this double standard?
There is an increasingly strong demand for morality and being exemplary, which is completely understandable. However, at the same time, I think that it is extremely delicate not to be deeply attached to the idea that there is a presumption of innocence, which is the foundation of our rule of law, that justice is carried out in the courts.
Sometimes people can be wrongly accused. Dominique Baudis [former mayor of Toulouse and former Defender of Rights] proves that the media-moral hype is not always a guarantee of a fair trial. We must strike a balance between being exemplary and the presumption of innocence. Otherwise, the media, public opinion and Twitter will prevail. And I am not sure that this is a democratic advance.