Marine Le Pen hails ‘historic victory’ as her party and allies win enough seats to form caucus just months ahead of presidential poll
The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has said her 2027 presidential campaign will be boosted after her anti-immigration party, the National Rally (RN), and its allies secured a record 14 seats in partial senate elections this weekend.
Le Pen called the results a “historic victory” and “major milestone” after her party cleared the 10-seat threshold to be able to form a senate group for the first time, following an indirect vote by local officials including mayors and councillors.
The party’s progress in the senate will allow them higher visibility and more funding in the second house of parliament ahead next spring’s presidential election. Le Pen is currently polling high as Emmanuel Macron prepares to step down after ten years in office.
Okay let me try.
First, senatorial elections are indirect elections. Meaning that senators are elected from an electoral college mostly from local officials. The system is extremely complex and depends on the departement’s number of senators, itself roughly proportional to population. The senate as an institution is really controversial, since it has almost always been very right wing because France has a rural bias in terms of of sheer number of rural municipalities vs. urban and more progressive ones (overgeneralisation I know, but mostly true).
Second, the “surge” is only 12 seats of a total of 178 up for election. Not a tsunami wave per se, but still worrying as the system tends to favor the traditional right wing, as it reflects a much larger proportion of far-right presence in local, departemental and regional councils.
And third, because like everywhere else in Europe, nazi cunts from USA, Russia and Israel flood social media with propaganda to destroy democracy from the inside. And a lot of major media outlets are owned by fascist billionaires.