14 Senate Seats: National Rally Forms Its First Group in France's Upper Chamber
September 28, 2026 · Frisian News
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
National Rally and its UDR allies won 14 Senate seats on 27 September 2026, forming a parliamentary group in France's upper chamber for the first time in the party's history, less than seven months before the presidential election.
Fourteen. That is the confirmed number of senators the Rassemblement national and its UDR allies secured on Sunday, according to RN deputy Sébastien Chenu, who announced the total on Public Sénat as reported by Le JDD. The figure clears by four the ten-seat floor that franceinfo identified as necessary to form a parliamentary group, a threshold the party had never crossed.
Half-renewed every three years by a college of local elected officials, the Senate at the Palais du Luxembourg had never before given the RN a parliamentary group. Sunday changed that.
Marine Le Pen, posting on X before the final count was confirmed, called the result "une victoire historique et une étape majeure" and said outcomes had gone "beyond what we could have hoped for," as quoted by franceinfo. The vote came less than seven months before the presidential election, as franceinfo noted.
The arithmetic is specific. Le JDD's live results showed RN entered Sunday with three senators from the 2020 round already in place. Sunday added two seats in Bouches-du-Rhône, two in the Var where the RN-led list polled 30.20 percent at the second round, one each in the Gard, the Hérault and the Vaucluse. In Gironde, RN vice-president Edwige Diaz, already a National Assembly deputy for that same department, took 19.63 percent at the second round, Le JDD reported. In Seine-Maritime, Léon Levasseur won with 13.11 percent.
Of the Senate's 348 seats, 178 were up for renewal on Sunday, according to L'Humanité. The centre and traditional right held their ground elsewhere. Bruno Retailleau, the LR presidential candidate, was re-elected in Vendée in the first round with 62.48 percent, Le JDD reported. La France insoumise also recorded a first: Gabriel Amard won in the Rhône, giving LFI its Senate debut. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, LFI's presidential candidate, hailed it as a "happy omen for 2027," per Le JDD.
UDR president Éric Ciotti predicted "une quinzaine" senators in the combined RN-UDR bloc, according to Le JDD, and said the group would challenge what he called "the immobile and powerless conformism that characterises the Senate."
Not every Le Pen performed well. Marine's sister Marie-Caroline, standing in the Sarthe in her first Senate race, finished fourth with 12.55 percent of the second-round vote according to Le JDD, and did not enter the chamber.
Jordan Bardella, RN president, wrote on X that the new group would "carry the voice of forgotten territories, of rural France, and of mayors too often kept away from the big decisions made in Paris," as quoted by franceinfo. Reaching ten senators, as franceinfo explained, gives a party the formal standing to weigh in on debates and legislative work at the Palais du Luxembourg.
France votes for a president in under seven months. The Senate does not elect one.
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Published September 28, 2026 · Frisian News