France’s far-right National Rally surges in Senate elections

France’s far-right National Rally (RN) party and its allies have secured a record 14 seats in the rightwing-dominated Senate in elections, effectively quadrupling its number in the 348-seat chamber just months before a presidential poll.

RN presidential candidate Marine Le Pen called the results an “historic victory” after they were announced on Sunday. “The results ‌have exceeded our expectations,” she said.

It was the first time the ⁠party had cleared the 10-seat threshold to be able to form a Senate caucus.

Local elected officials vote for new senators for half the upper chamber every three years, each to serve a six-year term.

The far-right party entered the Senate for the first time with two seats in 2014, when it was known as the National Front, and won three seats in 2023.

Le Pen is considering her best chance yet at power in elections scheduled for a first round in April next year when the centrist president, Emmanuel Macron, steps down.

“This is a historic victory, and a major milestone with the formation for the first time of a group in the Senate,” she said on X.

Nine RN senators were elected on Sunday, according to an AFP tally of results, on top of the three who won seats in 2023.

A further two were elected from RN ally Eric Ciotti’s Union of the Right for the Republic (UDR) party.

RN’s president, Jordan Bardella, said the party’s senators would form a group with UDR allies.

Ciotti quit the rightwing Republicans (LR) party in 2024 after calling for an alliance with the far right.

The upper chamber’s LR president of more than a decade, Gerard Larcher, 77, is expected to be re-elected next week.

The right, centre and leftwing Socialists looked set to remain the three major forces in the upper house, according to initial results.

The hard-left France Unbowed party won a seat for the first time.

Le Pen’s anti-immigration party emerged as the single largest party in the lower-house National Assembly after Macron called snap polls in 2024, although it fell well short of a majority.