2023-09-24 23:24:32
The French right would maintain, as expected, control of the Senate, the left would be strengthened, the “Macronists” would be in trouble and the party of the far-right Marine Le Pen would return to the French upper house, according to the provisional results of the elections. senatorial elections held yesterday in 45 constituencies in France.
The French did not go to the polls yesterday to vote. Senators are elected in France by indirect universal suffrage for six years. Every three years, half of the chamber is renewed. There were 1,829 candidates in these elections for the 172 seats that were at stake of the 348 in the upper house.
The new senators have been elected by an electoral body of 87,000 “grand electors”, made up of deputies, provincial and regional councillors, councilors of French people abroad and delegates of municipal councils. The latter are the most numerous, since they constitute 95% of the delegates.
As expected, the Republicans, who had 145 seats in the outgoing Senate, would continue to be the dominant force in the Luxembourg Palace, along with their allies, the Centrist Union, which until now had 57 seats. “A beautiful victory” for the moderate right, congratulated Éric Ciotti, president of Los Republicanos. Among the conservative senators who have been re-elected, Gérard Larcher, president of the Senate, stands out.
The left (socialists, communists and environmentalists) is strengthened. These three parties had set themselves the goal for these elections to pass the barrier of 100 senators, compared to the 91 that these three groups had in the outgoing Senate. The environmental MEP Yannick Jadot, former presidential candidate, will return to national politics after being elected senator for Paris last night.
Renaissance, President Emmanuel Macron’s party, demonstrated once again that, even if it wins in the presidential elections, it still has little local anchorage. It is a very personalistic party, which revolves around the figure of Macron, which makes it play in other elections.
Although she started as a favorite, the Secretary of State for Citizenship, Sonia Backès, the only member of the government who was running in these elections, was defeated in the second round by the pro-independence Robert Xowie in New Caledonia. It is the first time that an independentist enters the French Senate. Macron’s party also lost the only senator he had in Paris.
National Rally, Marine Le Pen’s party, would obtain three senators and return to the upper house after a year of absence. The entry into the Luxembourg Palace of three far-right senators will allow, according to Le Pen, “patriots to be worthily represented in the Senate and to defend the ideas that we promote for France.”
Le Pen’s party had lost the only senator it had in 2022. Senator Stéphane Ravier joined the far-right party of Éric Zemmour in the midst of the presidential election campaign.
Since 1958, the French Senate has been controlled by the right in the Fifth Republic, except between 2011 and 2014 when left-wing forces had the advantage in the Luxembourg Palace.
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