Stability remains in the Senate. On the occasion of the senatorial elections, Sunday September 27, 178 of the 348 seats in the Luxembourg Palace were put into play as part of the renewal by half of the upper house every three years. Unsurprisingly, at the end of the almost final results – they will be on Monday morning after the final counts in certain overseas departments – the right and the center right will retain the clear majority they have had since 2014, with the groups Les Républicains and Union centrist.
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The National Rally, however, appears to be one of the winners of election night, with the formation of the first group in its history in the Senate. Insoumise France is invited for the first time to this hemicycle, while the left remains rather stable. Franceinfo looks back at the main lessons from this election, the last before the presidential election in spring 2027.
The Republicans are losing a little ground, but retain a clear majority with the centrist Union
Gérard Larcher can be calm: the President of the Senate, candidate to succeed him after this election, can count on the maintenance of a solid majority of the right and center right to allow him to remain on the plateau, the senatorial equivalent of the perch in the National Assembly. First group in the Senate, The Republicans had 131 seats, 77 of which were up for grabs during this election. They recorded several losses, particularly in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, with the breakthrough of the Union of Rights for the Republic, Eric Ciotti's party. Several executives of the senatorial majority were, however, re-elected, such as Bruno Retailleau, LR candidate in the presidential election, in Vendée, or Mathieu Darnaud, president of the LR group in the Senate, in Ardèche.
The centrist Union group, which comes from the Union of Democrats and Independents (UDI) and had 59 elected officials, had the ambition to progress by surpassing the 60 seat mark. We will have to wait for the official constitution of the groups, in the coming days, to find out if the bet is successful.
The National Rally achieves its objective of forming a group
This was one of the main issues of these senatorial elections: seven months before a presidential election that it wants to win, would the National Rally glean at least ten seats and thus create a parliamentary group? The objective was successful for the party with the flame, and Marine Le Pen hailed on X “a historic victory” and “a general breakthrough”. Before the vote, the RN had three senators. He sent, with his Ciottist allies, eleven new elected officials to the upper house, including two in Bouches-du-Rhône, two in Var and two in Alpes-Maritimes. The deputy and vice-president of the RN, Edwige Diaz, was elected in Gironde.
This success can be explained in particular by the progress of the far-right party in medium-sized towns during the municipal elections in March. “Our group in the Senate will carry the voice of forgotten territories, rurality, and mayors too often far from the major decisions taken in Paris,” wrote the president of the party, Jordan Bardella, on X, before the publication of the final results.
The Socialist Party remains stable, some losses for the Ecologists
The Socialist Party (64 seats before the election) lost a few feathers, in Creuse for example, but obtained some gains, in Doubs and Hérault in particular. The final counts, expected on Monday, will show whether or not the PS remains the second force in the Senate ahead of the centrist Union. As for the Ecologists (16 seats), they lost a seat in Gironde and Alsace, a logical consequence of the switch from Bordeaux and Strasbourg to the municipal elections.
LFI enters the Senate
