Patrick Buisson died at the age of 74. This intellectual figure of the conservative right was a former shadow advisor to Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elysée and an activist for the union of the rights.
Published
Reading time: 2 min
:quality(50)/2023/12/26/patrick-buisson-658af621146fa452060372.jpg)
He was an intellectual figure of the conservative right. The essayist and historian Patrick Buisson was found lifeless at his home in Les Sables-d’Olonne on Tuesday December 26. He was best known for being the father of the right which claims to be “uninhibited”, that which assumes an authoritarian and security discourse.
Patrick Buisson was Nicolas Sarkozy’s shadow advisor at the Élysée for five years. He suggested creating the Ministry of National Identity and Immigration. Patrick Buisson wrote several speeches, notably the famous Grenoble speech of July 2010, in which the former head of state made the link between immigration and delinquency. Favorite themes or obsessions which earned him the nickname “bad genius”.
Defender of the union of rights
Theories drawn and developed from his intellectual and political journey. Never elected, Patrick Buisson has always been in contact with and flirted with far-right circles, being a member of Action Française, a national and royalist movement during his youth.
He was notably editor-in-chief of the magazine Minutethen journalist at the very conservative Current Values. In recent years, Patrick Buisson even defended the union of the rights, supporting an alliance between the National Front and the Republican right. After supporting François Fillon in the right-wing primary in 2016, he appeared in the front row in an Éric Zemmour meeting during the last presidential campaign.
Secret recordings of Nicolas Sarkozy
In recent years, he and Nicolas Sarkozy had broken off relations. Because Patrick Buisson is also known for being the one who secretly recorded several meetings at the Élysée, under the mandate of the former president. Recordings that were made with a hidden dictaphone. Extracts had been published in particular by Point, The chained Duck and the Atlantico website.
Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni had filed a complaint for violation of privacy and in 2014, Patrick Buisson was ordered to pay a fine of 10,000 euros. A few years earlier, during a presentation of the Legion of Honor, the former head of state had nevertheless declared : “Patrick is the one to whom I owe more than anyone else.”
Tributes to the right and the far right
It is precisely on the right of the political spectrum that the reactions are most numerous today. “Patrick Buisson was a man of great culture, a talented writer and a mad lover of France”reacted Marine Le Pen, on the social network X.
Among the quickest reactions also, that of Jordan Bardella, the president of the National Rally, who salutes a man who has advanced the ideas of the national camp, as very few intellectuals have succeeded. Another reaction is that of Éric Ciotti, the boss of the Les Républicains party: “I always had a lot of pleasure talking with him, he passionately loved France and its history.” Patrick Buisson was also head of the Histoire television channel, author of around twenty books.