The Senate remains in the hands of the right.
No upheaval in the "chamber of local communities", half renewed this Sunday, September 27.
Partial reflection of the last municipal elections, the results of the vote of 87,000 “large voters” - elected representatives 95% of town halls - are marked by stability.
Balances are however modified at the margin, after the redistribution of 172 seats out of 348. Europe Écologie-Les Verts (EELV) progresses, The Republic on the move (LREM) ebbs and the National Rally (RN) saves its only seat in the senatorial hemicycle, second institution of Parliament with the National Assembly.
Read also: Results in real time: discover the senators elected in your department
● The right and its allies strengthen their base
At the head of the Senate for more than sixty years, except during the fleeting socialist parenthesis from 2011 to 2014, the right and its allies are strengthening their base.
The majority is
"consolidated"
, rejoiced Sunday evening the President (Republicans, LR) of the Senate, Gérard Larcher.
LR senators (143 outgoing seats including 75 renewable) saw their president,
Bruno Retailleau
, be re-elected in his stronghold of Vendée.
The workforce of their centrist Union partner (UC, 51 outgoing seats including 24 renewable) is also growing.
Known for his fine and biting speeches, the president of the Les Indépendants-République et Territoires group (14 outgoing seats including 7 renewable),
Claude Malhuret
, was re-elected in the Allier.
Read also: What is the use of the Senate, "chamber of the territories" half renewed this Sunday?
● LREM holds on with heavyweight wins
The Macronist party maintains its positions in the Senate, despite its failure in the municipal elections.
The LREM group (23 outgoing seats including 10 renewable), composed mainly of former Socialists elected in 2014, stabilizes its workforce with the victories of heavyweights.
The leader of LREM senators,
François Patriat
, saves his seat in Côte-d'Or.
Two ministers are elected:
Sébastien Lecornu
(Overseas), appointed for the first time in Eure, and
Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne
(Tourism), already elected in 2014 under the colors of the right in Yonne.
Both should remain in government and send their alternates to sit.
They dream of reconfiguring the hemicycle by bringing together in a single group the elected pro-Macron, for the time being dispersed in several centrist groups.
Read also: Voting methods, voters, candidates ... The keys to understanding senatorial elections
● A group for environmentalists
The left is only making up part of the ground lost in the past six years.
His way of salvation is called EELV: the "green wave" in Lyon, Bordeaux, Strasbourg and in other large cities during municipal elections, strengthens the contingent of four environmental senators already present.
Now more than ten, the Greens can reconstitute a political group in the Senate - promise of increased speaking time and additional human resources - announced Sunday evening the ecologist Esther Benbassa.
As for the Socialist Party (PS, 71 outgoing seats including 35 renewable) it remains the leading opposition group.
Communists understood,
"the three left-wing groups will weigh,"
promises the leader of the Socialists, Patrick Kanner.
To read also: Guillaume Tabard: "The Senate, a precious assembly in lack of headliner"
● The RN saves its only seat
To everyone's surprise, the RN retains its only seat, held by the non-registered
Stéphane Ravier
.
Weakened by his defeat in the municipal elections in his 7th sector of Marseille (Bouches-du-Rhône), the elected representative had lost "great voters" but was able to count on support from other sides.
The party to the flame does not find its seat in the Var, which had escaped it in 2018 when Claudine Kauffman, deputy senator of the mayor of Fréjus David Rachline - prevented from accumulating -, had resigned from the movement.
● A Corsican nationalist elected for the first time
A Corsican nationalist, autonomist tendency, entered the Senate for the first time.
Symbol of the progress of the “natios”, Paul Toussaint Parigi, mayor of Santa Lucia di Mercuriu, is elected in Haute-Corse, the stronghold of his friend Gilles Simeoni, the president of the island.
He could join the contingent of elected Greens.
Three years after the historic election of three deputies, supporters of
"autonomy"
for Corsica now sit in both chambers of Parliament.
Read also: The Senate, watchtower of the Republic
Appointment of the President of the Senate Thursday
The Senate has not completed its electoral cycle. Thursday, October 1, he will elect his president, for three years - the outgoing, Gérard Larcher, is favorite. In September 2021, the assembly will complete its renewal by appointing six of the twelve senators representing French people living outside France. Scheduled this year, the poll has been postponed due to the Covid-19 epidemic.