The day will be decisive for local elected officials. This Sunday, the electors of around sixty departments began to vote at 8:30 a.m. An electoral college of more than 93,000 voters, mainly municipal councilors, must renew 178 of the 348 senators, elected for six years.
From Ain to Indre and Bas-Rhin to the Territoire de Belfort via Guyana, political parties will have their eyes glued to the results, expected from midday for a handful of candidates elected in the first round, then throughout the evening for the others. Offices close at 5:30 p.m. in mainland France.
The vote, the last major electoral event before the presidential election in April 2027, is rich in issues: will the National Rally obtain a parliamentary group in the upper house for the first time in its history? Will Bruno Retailleau obtain all the seats in Vendée before aiming for the Elysée? Should the Macronist group fear for its survival a few months before Emmanuel Macron's departure? Will rebellious France celebrate its first senator?
A crucial issue for the RN
In an election where upheavals are rare because it results directly from municipal elections, the majority acquired by the Republicans and their centrist allies is not in danger. GĂ©rard Larcher, who has already been president of the institution for 15 years, has nothing to fear either for his re-election as boss of the upper house, scheduled for Thursday.
But the right is exposed to a well-identified threat: the surge of the National Rally, whose local establishment is progressing. The RN and its allies in the Union of Rights for the Republic (UDR) are impatiently awaiting this vote, because the party should triple or even quadruple its number of elected officials, currently three.
Traveling to the Var, its president Jordan Bardella could therefore well announce the historic creation of a parliamentary group, accessible from ten seats. âSeven months before the presidential election, this would send a signal. An RN group in the Senate will contribute to rebalancing representation in Parliament,â says MP Edwige Diaz. This candidate in Gironde symbolizes the ambitions of the RN and despite an insufficient stock of electors on paper, she can believe in it.
A threat to the left
Alpes-Maritimes, Var, Bouches-du-RhĂŽne, Vaucluse⊠There are plenty of areas to conquer for the National Rally, which will rely on the vote of many elected officials without a label to create a surprise. And give a further boost to Marine Le Penâs candidacy for the ElysĂ©e. The arrival of an RN group would be âthe political eventâ of this election, recognizes an executive from the central bloc in the Senate. âA structured group, with speaking time, is a new world for us,â supports Alexandre Ouizille, a socialist senator who fears seeing the PS âlose its feathersâ after complicated municipal elections in medium-sized towns.
After the loss of Bordeaux and Strasbourg, the Ecologists can also suffer... But a green dissidence in the RhÎne, that of the former boss of the metropolis of Lyon Bruno Bernard, could paradoxically offer them an additional seat, to the detriment of François Hollande's former minister, HélÚne Geoffroy. This candidacy also jeopardizes the chances of the best Insoumise card, Gabriel Amard, also son-in-law of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Final numbers in a few days
âWith the weakening of LR, it is rather the central space which asserts itself. We aspire to be more numerous,â wants to believe the boss of the centrist Union HervĂ© Marseille, which brings together around sixty senators from diverse backgrounds. Horizons, represented by the group of Independents which has 20 members, can legitimately believe in some significant gains for the dynamic of Edouard Philippe on the road to the ElysĂ©e.
But the numbers will only be final in a few days, after an intense transfer window to rally dozens of elected officials from various centers and right-wing parties. In this game, many elected officials are worried about the fate of the Macronist group RDPI, orphan of its influential president François Patriat, who died this summer. Sunday morning, he already recorded a setback with the defeat of his outgoing senator in the overseas community of Wallis and Futuna.
