What does far-right surge in French Senate election mean for next year’s presidential poll?
A strong result for the far-right National Rally in France’s Senatorial elections is seen as boosting momentum for the presidential run of Marine Le Pen in 2027. Polls have consistently shown Le Pen as the front-runner among the public in advance of the election in April. The Senate vote is indirect and draws from a different electorate of 93,000 mostly local representatives and members of parliament. The result is seen as evidence that the party has managed to build support and acceptance at local government level. The National Rally and its allied party the UDR (Union of the Right for the Republic) together managed to more than triple their representation in the Senate from four to 14 seats. They will be far from a dominating force in the 348-seat chamber, but for the first time can form an official “group”, which requires 10 senators or more. Le Pen described the result as a “historic victory and a major milestone”. “The results have exceeded our expectations; the breakthrough is widespread, confirming the accelerated expansion of the National Rally across the country,” she said. The French Senate’s role is to check and amend legislation. It can set up inquiries and summon people for hearings, and it is usually seen as a moderating force and counterbalance to the executive branch of power. Because it will now constitute a group, for the first time the National Rally will have Senate premises, the financial resources to hire staff, speaking time in chamber debates and the ability to establish one committee of inquiry per year, with greater sway over the negotiation of texts. National Rally leaders were triumphant at the defeat of what they described as a “glass ceiling”. “This is another election step in our march toward seizing power and winning the presidency,” party vice-president Sébastien Chenu told reporters. “It’s a real boost for the presidential campaign.” Starting gun fires on Europe’s make-or-break election in France The election set off a debate among other parties about whether they should enforce a “cordon sanitaire”, a traditional boycott against working with the far right. Green Party senator Mélanie Vogel told parliamentary television channel Public Sénat that a cordon sanitaire should mean “not voting for vice-presidencies, not voting on amendments, not cosigning texts with the National Rally, not sitting on their inquiry committees”. But this view was not unanimous and it was clear that some within traditional parties were open to working with the National Rally, signalling a potential political shift within the broader centre right. “There is no cordon sanitaire in democracy. Democracy was expressed in the municipal elections,” Sophie Primas, a senator with the conservative Republicans party, told the broadcaster. One surprise was the election of two senators from La France Insoumise (LFI), or France Unbowed, an uncompromising left-wing party led by veteran firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The breakthrough result is a filip to Mélenchon, who has crept up in polls and has reason to hope he can be the candidate who faces Le Pen in a second-round presidential run-off. The LFI issued a statement to say the victory came despite “machinations” by the Green Party and the “old left” to block its path, and that the result proved that the “radical left” should be the alternative presented to voters in the election. A habitual debate followed among the Greens and the Socialist party about whether to work with LFI for the sake of broader left unity, or whether they are too politically toxic. The overall balance of power in the Senate is expected to remain largely unchanged by the elections, in which half of the chamber’s seats were up for grabs with the other half elected in three years’ time. Crime, terror, immigration: France through the eyes of its ‘Fox News’ The Greens and a centrist group lost two seats each, while the Republicans lost six seats but remained the largest group with 125 Senators.