The word “senate” comes from the Latin word “senatus” which literally means “the council of elders” (from the word “senex” meaning “old”, even “old man”). If the Upper House maintains an image of an aged institution, also fueled by the lack of representativeness of senators (whose average age is 60 years and 2 months, compared to just over 41 years for all French people) , this condemns it to being relatively unknown, or even to not really interesting the French.
An observation which also comes from the fact that senators are the only representatives to be elected by indirect universal suffrage. However, it is important to follow the evolution of the Senate as a chamber which represents the stability of the Republic.
The senators, numbering 348, are elected by indirect universal suffrage by a college of 162,000 electors: delegates or substitutes for delegates from municipal councils (i.e. 95% of electors), deputies, regional councilors, councilors generals; in short, local elected officials. This vote is not a right, but an obligation, failure to which is punishable by a fine of 100 euros.
Anyone can stand as a candidate under the same conditions as other elections (having French nationality, not having been condemned to ineligibility, etc.), except the age threshold, which is 24 years. As representatives of local authorities, senators are often elected based on their experience in their territory rather than according to their political positions strictly speaking. The professions most exercised by senators are in the sectors of education, civil service, commerce, liberal or even medical professions (like the President of the Senate, Gérard Larcher, a veterinarian by profession and who, too, , puts its title back on the line in September), since they are in daily contact with the population.
Article 24 of the Constitution defines the two main missions of the Senate. The first is shared with the National Assembly: “He controls the action of the government. It evaluates public policies. » However, the mode of operation of the Senate was designed to guarantee a certain stability; unlike the National Assembly, it can therefore neither be dissolved by the government nor adopt a motion of censure to force its resignation. The two chambers thus occupy the function of counter-power and monitor the policy pursued by the government. In this dynamic of stability, the longevity record is held by Christian Poncelet, senator for almost thirty-seven years, until his retirement in 2014.
Finally, rural France is historically and generally marked to the right, even if there are exceptions (Ariège, certain municipalities in Brittany and the South, certain overseas territories, etc.). Therefore, since it represents local authorities and gives a particularly important voice to localities, the Senate is also historically the institution of the right, sometimes of the center – the Socialist Party is the only left-wing party to have had a majority in the history of the Fifth Republic, from 2011 to 2014.
Senators are therefore parliamentarians with the same roles as deputies (proposing laws, amending them, voting on them), with the difference that they represent local authorities and are therefore sometimes more focused on local issues. The laws that concern these communities (for example the 2022 law known as 3DS, “relating to differentiation, decentralization, deconcentration and carrying various measures to simplify local public action”) are even first examined by senators , then by the deputies, before returning to the Senate – while laws of national scope generally take the opposite route (“shuttle”).