[10][11][12] The elder in a family of 4 children, he grew up in Saint-Malô-du-Bois, a village in the bocage of Vendée, 7 kilometres from where the Puy du Fou historical theme park, launched by Philippe de Villiers, would emerge.

[17] A member of the Movement for France (MPF), founded by De Villiers, until 2010, Retailleau became the Vendée general councillor for the canton of Mortagne-sur-Sèvre in 1988, a position he retained until 2015.

In the 2015 regional election, Retailleau led a list in Pays de la Loire with the support of The Republicans (LR) and the Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI), which received over 42% of the second-round vote.

[22] Ahead of The Republicans' 2019 leadership election, Retailleau announced that despite speculation he would not run for the party presidency, calling Christian Jacob the "consensual" candidate.

[4] Ahead of introducing a bill on the subject, he demanded prefects order a "complete mobilisation" to "speed up the pace of deportations" of illegal migrants.

[37] Regularly described as a liberal-conservative, Retailleau advocates major reforms of work, the state and the French social model, and calls for "a policy of civilisation" against wokeism.

[41] Attached to national sovereignty, he regularly denounces the influence of jurisprudence such as that of the ECHR, was opposed to the Treaty of Lisbon and refuses any federalist push within the European Union.

[36][42] In 2019, advocating for "an intellectual refoundation" of the right, Retailleau aimed to give back an ideological corpus to his political family and called on the right to seize new issues such as environmentalism, to which he devoted a book.

"[48] In 2023, following the Nahel Merzouk riots, Retailleau denounced a "regression towards the ethnic origins" of the rioters, adding that although they were French by citizenship, they were in his opinion not culturally so.

[56] In a joint letter initiated by Norbert Röttgen and Anthony Gonzalez ahead of the 47th G7 summit in 2021, Retailleau joined some 70 legislators from Europe, the US and Japan in calling upon their leaders to take a tough stance on China and to "avoid becoming dependent" on the country for technology including artificial intelligence and 5G.

[57] Following the 2023 Nigerien coup d'état, Retailleau joined forces with fellow Senators Christian Cambon and Roger Karoutchi on an open letter to President Macron in Le Figaro, criticising France's Africa policy and arguing that the failure of Operation Barkhane was in great part the reason why France and its economic, political and military presence have been rejected in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and the Central African Republic; the letter was signed by 91 other senators.

[58][59] In 2019, Retailleau wrote to the Israeli ambassador to France to demand that Christians who live in Gaza be allowed to travel to Bethlehem and Jerusalem for Christmas.

[62] Passionate about horseback riding, Retailleau was spotted by Philippe de Villiers while participating as a volunteer rider in the "Cinéscénie" show at the Puy du Fou.