France’s far-right National Rally (RN) party and its allies have secured a record 14 seats in the rightwing-dominated Senate in elections, effectively quadrupling its number in the 348-seat chamber just months before a presidential poll.
RN presidential candidate Marine Le Pen called the results a “major milestone” after they were announced on Sunday. “The results go beyond what we could have hoped,” she said, in a post on X.
France’s conservative Republicans party and its allies were set to retain a majority in the Senate, despite the National Rally’s surge in support.
The Republicans held at least 127 seats following the votes, compared with 131 held previously, with three regions yet to release results late on Sunday.
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Allied parties and individuals will have at least 72 seats, compared with 73 previously, according to a tabulation by Le Monde. A total of 178 Senate seats were up for grabs, slightly more than half of the total in France’s Senate.
The country’s upper chamber uses a voting system that differs from those used in other French elections. Senators are elected by thousands of local officials including mayors, legislators and city council members who largely vote along party lines.
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Although the Senate can introduce or amend legislation, the National Assembly – the lower house – has the final say on Bills and determines which party gets to form a government.
The National Rally and its allied party and individuals will hold at least 14 Senate seats following Sunday’s election, enough to create a formal group in the chamber. It is a status that requires at least 10 senators and brings with it added floor time, extra funds for staff and the ability to create inquiry commissions.
The Republicans, the party of former presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac, has slipped in recent direct elections and is now the fifth-largest group in the National Assembly.
But municipal elections determine the great majority of officials eligible to vote in Senate races, and traditional parties that have long emphasised local politics such as the Republicans and the Socialist Party have held up better in those contests. Bruno Retailleau, president of the Republicans and also a candidate for the 2027 presidential election, was re-elected to the Senate on Sunday.
Although the election results show an increase in support for the National Rally, they still don’t reflect the level of popularity the party shows in polls of voting intentions for next year’s presidential election. In those surveys, National Rally’s Le Pen is the front-runner for the first round of voting, followed by former prime minister Édouard Philippe and far-left politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Mélenchon’s party, France Unbowed, won at least one Senate seat as of Sunday evening. – Bloomberg
