France’s far-right National Rally surges in partial Senate elections

Original article by Angelique Chrisafis in Paris

The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has said her 2027 presidential campaign will be boosted after her anti-immigration party, the National Rally (RN), and its allies secured a record 14 seats in partial senate elections this weekend.

Le Pen called the results a “historic victory” and “major milestone” after her party cleared the 10-seat threshold to be able to form a senate group for the first time, following an indirect vote by local officials including mayors and councillors.

The party’s progress in the senate will allow them higher visibility and more funding in the second house of parliament ahead next spring’s presidential election. Le Pen is currently polling high as Emmanuel Macron prepares to step down after ten years in office.

The RN MP Sébastien Chenu called the gains “a boost for the presidential campaign” and said there was “no more glass ceiling” for the party. Edwige Diaz, who secured a large senate win for the RN in Gironde outside Bordeaux, told Le Parisien: “This will be very useful for us before the presidential election.”

The 348-seat senate is France’s second chamber of parliament alongside the national assembly. Final results on Monday morning showed the senate remained dominated by the traditional right and centre-right.

default

The upper chamber’s president of more than a decade, Gerard Larcher, 77, from the rightwing party Les Républicains is expected to be re-elected next week.

Although the RN is currently the biggest single opposition party in the national assembly, and has the largest number of French members of the European parliament, it has until now never had a grouping in the senate, where its presence has been small.

Nine RN senators were elected on Sunday, in addition to the three who won seats in 2023. The RN ally, Eric Ciotti’s Union of the Right for the Republic (UDR) party, also won two seats.

The far-right party had entered the senate for the first time with two seats in 2014, when it was known as the Front National, and won three seats in 2023.

The senate has an indirect voting system, with local elected officials choosing new senators for half the upper chamber every three years, each to serve a six-year term.

Sunday’s vote by local mayors and councillors reflected the RN’s growth in support in medium towns at the last local elections in March. It also showed the party has support among independent rural mayors. The RN leader Jordan Bardella called on politicians on the traditional right to join forces with his party.

The Socialist senator, Laurence Rossignol, said a crucial question would be whether the right and centre right in the senate now move closer the RN and harden their own stance on issues such as immigration and welfare benefits. She told Public Sénat TV: “Will there be a republican barrier against RN ideas? That will be key.”

The right, the centre and the left’s Socialists remained the three major forces in the upper house.

The radical left party, La France Insoumise, won a senate seat for the first time, with Gabriel Amard elected in the Rhône. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the party’s leader, who is currently the highest-polling left candidate for the presidency, said Amard’s win was a “good omen” for his own 2027 presidential campaign.