The three dilemmas facing France's moderate right wing

Over the past two decades, the most consequential political shift across liberal democracies has been the rise of the radical right—either through new challenger parties or the radicalization of once-mainstream conservatives. In this climate, the traditional center-right faces a stark problem: how to stem the loss of voters and influence to more radical competitors without abandoning its own liberal-constitutionalist moorings.

The drivers of this drift are varied. One, often cited by conservatives, is the advance of identity politics on the left—shorthand as "wokeism"—which has made it easier for populist nationalists to mobilize backlash. In countries like France and the United States, radical-right leaders have feasted on progressive excesses, whether framed around race, gender, or narratives of the "Global North" versus the "Global South."

"France’s outgoing interior minister and presidential hopeful Bruno Retailleau describes radical Islam as an accelerant of France’s social and political instability"

In his booklet Ne rien céder, based on a lecture given in London last March, France’s outgoing interior minister and presidential hopeful Bruno Retailleau—recently elected leader of Les Républicains—describes radical Islam as an accelerant of France’s social and political instability. In his telling, it both enables terrorism and exploits democratic freedoms to propagate intolerance as well as practices and values at odds with French and European norms.

Retailleau rejects Saint-Just’s maxim "no freedom for the enemies of freedom." Legislative and repressive measures, he argues, are insufficient on their own. Instead, he sketches three pillars for a renewed Western identity to counter the relativism and consumerism that, in his view, have hollowed out the West’s moral core and ceded ground to an Islamist "grand récit." He calls for rebalancing freedom away from what he considers the absolutist conception prevalent in human-rights jurisprudence; confronting what he terms "oikophobia," a disdain for one’s own civilizational home that, he argues, fosters a convergence between Islamist separatism and certain strands of "woke" politics; and recovering civic pride in national history, sentiment, and civilizational belonging, transmitting these to younger generations being careful to steer clear from any ethnicism. The caution is timely: in recent years, ethnicist currents have reemerged, from "White Britain" rhetoric in the UK to identitarian movements elsewhere.

"Like many conservatives, Retailleau faults international courts for a rights-maximalist jurisprudence, here the center-right walks a tightrope"

Retailleau insists genuine conservatism should reject ethno-nationalism while defending these priorities. Yet his exposé reveals the very dilemmas that beset the mainstream right as it tries to hold ground against its radical flank. The first concerns the rule of law. Like many conservatives, Retailleau faults international courts —the ECJ and ECHR— for a rights-maximalist jurisprudence. He points to headline cases in which terrorists or other offenders prevail against state authorities, episodes the radical right brandishes to justify curbing judicial independence. There are instances of overreach and political backlash. But here the center-right walks a tightrope: how to recalibrate judicial boundaries—especially for transnational courts—without undermining the guarantees that safeguard constitutional democracy? And how to explain necessarily technical legal reforms in ways that clearly distinguish them from the radical right’s much broader illiberal ambitions?

A second dilemma concerns freedom of expression. Retailleau stands on classic republican ground in defending the right to criticize religion as part of France’s laïcité. Yet, drawing principled lines in pluralist societies is hard. Ongoing controversies —in France and elsewhere— over what counts as antisemitic or Islamophobic speech demonstrate how fraught and politically exploitable these boundaries can be. The temptation to score points against opponents often outpaces the painstaking work of building standards that protect robust speech while guarding against incitement and harassment.

"Retailleau’s call for pride in national history and civilizational belonging risks blurring the line with the radical right unless carefully framed"

A third dilemma sits at the intersection of nation and Europe. Retailleau’s call for pride in national history and civilizational belonging risks blurring the line with the radical right unless carefully framed. Most far-right parties are staunchly nationalist and hostile to supranational integration. By conviction or convenience, they gravitate toward international autocrats —Putin, Xi, or Trump— who prefer dealing with fragmented European states rather than a coherent Union. In today’s geopolitics, Europeanism versus nationalism is a defining divide between moderate and radical right opinion. For small and medium-sized states such as the European ones, nationalist retrenchment can quickly turn anti-integration and, in practice, into vassalage.

For now, Retailleau, like many mainstream conservatives elsewhere, seems to skirt the sharpest edges of these dilemmas. Ambiguity may buy short-term electoral flexibility; it does not amount to a governing strategy. If the center-right is to endure as a credible force, it will need to draw brighter lines—reforming judicial frameworks without gutting the rule of law, safeguarding free speech without indulging bigotry, and articulating a Europeanism that resists both ethnonationalism and geopolitical naïveté. Otherwise, it risks being absorbed —electorally and intellectually— by the very radicalism it claims to resist.