2023 French Senate election
 | You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (January 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions. |
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172 of 348 seats of the Senate 175 seats needed for a majority | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Map of the departments with senators up for election | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Senatorial elections took place on 24 September 2023 to renew 172 of the 348 seats in the Senate of the French Fifth Republic. The Republicans emerged as the largest party, but lost several seats. [2][3]
Context
[edit]Senatorial Elections of 2020
[edit]The Senatorial Elections of 2020 lead to a renforcement of the right-wing and center majority. The parties making up majority of the National Assembly failed to gain ascendancy, while the Ecologist group reappeared.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the renewal of six senators representing French citizens living abroad was pushed back a year, and the French consular elections were themselves postponed till May 2021. As a result, their renewal took place in September 2021.[4]
In its previous configuration from the elections of 2022, the senate was composed of 3 major groups (REP, the Centrist Union group, and the SOCR) and 6 other minor groups. The upper house is thus predominantly right- and center-leaning. The Republicans and the Centrist Union group had 202 out of 348 seats. The main force of opposition came from the SOCR with 64 senators.
2022 Presidential and Legislative Elections
[edit]These elections took place 16 months after the 2022 French presidential election, and saw the reelection of the outgoing president Emmanuel Macron, and 14 months after the June 2022 French legislative election, which marked the end of the 15th legislature of the French Fifth Republic. The latter led to the recomposition of the National Assembly, the lower house of the French Parlement.
Objectives of the Parties
[edit]The Right-Wing and Centrists
[edit]The senatorial majority of the right and center was the favorite retain the their majority. According to senator Roger Karoutchi of Hauts-de-Seine, the prospects ranged from a loss of 5 seats or a gain of 2 seats within the Senate Republicans, the most important group in terms of the numerical strength in the Senate.
With regard to the centrists, their objective was the surpassing the socialist group and becoming the Senate's secondary political group within the Senate. Numerically, the group counted a loss of 4 seats or even a gain of 3 seats.[5]
Senators who lost reelection
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "Gérard Larcher est réélu président du Sénat pour la cinquième fois". Le Figaro (in French). 2 October 2023. Retrieved 3 October 2023.
- ^ "Mode d'élection des Sénateurs Sénat". www.senat.fr. Retrieved 18 September 2022.
- ^ "Les élections sénatoriales auront lieu le 24 septembre". Ouest France. 4 April 2023. Retrieved 4 April 2023.
- ^ "Sénatoriales 2023 : 170 sièges à pourvoir". Vie-publique.fr. 16 August 2023.
- ^ Darame, Mariama; Floc’h, Benoît; Guillou, Clément; Lamothe, Jérémie (10 August 2023). "Elections sénatoriales 2023 : les enjeux d'un scrutin où Les Républicains sont les grands favoris". Le Monde. Archived from the original on 15 July 2024.
- ^ elected in a special election
- ^ elected in 2017 as n°5 on the Larcher list ; became senator after the resignation of Alain Schmitz
- ^ elected in 2017 as n°2 on the Léonhardt list ; became senator after the death of Olivier Léonhardt