Patrick Kanner reappointed president of the socialist group in the Senate

Northern senator Patrick Kanner was reappointed Wednesday as president of the socialist group in the Senate, the leading opposition force in the upper house, we learned within the group. The president of the LR group, Mathieu Darnaud, is also back. If the leader of the senatorial right, the first group in the Senate, was alone in the running, Patrick Kanner had to get rid of a competitor within the PS group.

The former minister of François Hollande, aged 69, won against Val-d'Oise senator Rachid Temal in a vote, with 39 votes against 19 for his competitor from the same PS movement, according to several internal sources. He will serve a fourth term at the head of the PS senators, after his first election in 2018 to this position.

This parliamentarian, who has always defended in the Senate the line of total opposition to La France insoumise, refusing all alliances with the Mélenchonist movement during the last senatorial elections, should lead a group of around 63 senators, after Sunday's elections, while awaiting definitive affiliations within the groups. Half of the hemicycle was renewed on Sunday, with a probable very slight drop for the PS, which held up well despite lackluster municipal elections, particularly in medium-sized towns. The Socialists notably lost a seat in Drôme, Creuse and Vaucluse, but they gained one in Bas-Rhin, Doubs and Hérault.

Patrick Kanner maintains his neutrality in the race for the socialist primary

The integration into the PS group of François Bayrou's former minister, François Rebsamen, elected in Côte-d'Or, was also accepted. He also led the socialist senators between 2011 and 2014. Patrick Kanner has still not officially given his position on the social-democratic primary with a view to the presidential election: “In this period, I owe myself a form of neutrality as president. I will take a position after the senatorial sequence,” he told AFP in recent days.