PARIS — Marine Le Pen’s National Rally won enough seats to form a group in the French Senate elections Sunday, giving the far-right party better representation in leadership roles and committees in the upper house of parliament. The National Rally jumped from three seats to 15 in the Senate during Sunday’s contest, clearing the 11-seat threshold to form a group. Half the Senate is elected every three years by some 42,000 local officials.
Le Pen, who polls show is the front-runner in next year’s presidential election, said on X that her party’s new Senate group “will serve as an essential platform during the presidential campaign.” On the other end of the spectrum, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left France Unbowed movement also won its first-ever seat in the chamber. The Senate will remain controlled by an alliance of lawmakers from the conservative Les Républicains and a centrist group, though the bloc lost several seats. A centrist senator, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, said the National Rally winning a group was “the culmination of their establishment in the political landscape.” “The [center-right] majority will remain the same, and our job will be to provide stability.
If anyone wanted to touch the institutions, we will be there to guarantee stability,” the senator added.
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