A few days before Sunday evening’s election, there was a little worry in the Republican ranks. “Some fear the loss of around ten seats, I fear that this figure will reach double,” confided an elected official. The senatorial elections will not have been as severe for LR. Gérard Larcher’s group lost a handful of seats (between two and three, according to its president, Bruno Retailleau) and the centrist Union seemed, before the announcement of the results from Guadeloupe and Martinique, stable, or even making slight progress . The two parties, traditional allies, therefore still have a fairly large majority. “This renewal reinforces the senatorial majority of the right and center right,” Gérard Larcher hastened to communicate. His re-election as President of the Senate is, it is true, beyond any doubt.

The electoral body of the Senate, which was renewed almost by half on Sunday, is based 95% on major voters who are members of municipal councils. These have not changed since the previous renewal, in fall 2020; so there were no big surprises to expect on Sunday evening. We predicted a setback for Renaissance, Emmanuel Macron’s party, it happened. The Rally of Democrats, Progressives and Independents (RDPI), which brings them together, suffered a setback with the loss of 5 to 7 seats out of the 24 it held. Julien Bargeton, a former PS, thus lost the only RDPI seat in the capital. The presidential party, whose weight is weak in municipal councils, also seems to be paying for the revolt of local elected officials, who cannot digest the elimination of the housing tax, insufficiently compensated in their eyes.

On the other hand, the vote favored a few elected officials from Horizons, the party of Édouard Philippe. Cédric Chevalier, in the Marne, and Franck Dhersin, in the North, joined the Luxembourg Palace with the intention of benefitting the former Prime Minister. “I think that Édouard Philippe is best placed to represent the right and the center in 2027. I want to prepare this work in the Senate,” announced Franck Dhersin at the end of last week to the VA Infos site.

Sunday evening, the smiles were mainly on the left of the hemicycle. The entire left hoped to reach the bar of 100 senators, but it narrowly failed. The Socialist Group wins 20 seats. It now has 69 elected officials, including Patrick Kanner, its outgoing president, who had his work cut out for him in the North with a multiplication of lists, notably that of Martine Filleul, a socialist dissident. Patrick Kanner should run for president of the group, but he will find on his way Éric Kerrouche, senator from Landes, favorable to Nupes (unlike Kanner). The Insoumis, as expected, do not win any senators. Angry at the lonesome of their Nupes comrades, who all refused to make room for the Mélenchonists, LFI presented lists almost everywhere, but failed everywhere.

The environmentalists won three seats, including Yannick Jadot in Paris, and the RN returned to the Luxembourg Palace with three senators. The last elected RN, Stéphane Ravier, had joined Éric Zemmour.

A few figures remain on the floor. This is the case of Pierre Charon, a historic Sarkozyist, who presented himself as a dissident after LR’s refusal to include him on the official list. Agnès Evren, boss of the Paris Republican Federation, on the other hand, succeeded in her bet: she was largely elected at the head of a rival LR list. Other losing headliner: Sonia Backès. Not content with combining, curiously, a position of Secretary of State in charge of Citizenship with the presidency of the southern province of New Caledonia, she wanted to land a position at the Luxembourg Palace. Sonia Backès was beaten by an independentist, Robert Xowie, who allowed the FLNKS to enter the Senate…

Now, it is time for negotiations between the groups and the new elected officials. Some, from the moderate right or the center, have not yet formally decided which group they wish to join. They have until Tuesday to decide. They will then have their work cut out for them: the government, which has given the Senate a prominent role again due to lack of an absolute majority in the Assembly, will present the 2024 budget in November and then the immigration bill.