PARIS: Just three years after France’s upper house Senate made history with its first ever swing to the left, the right clawed back a majority yesterday in a new setback for Socialist President Francois Hollande.
The far-right National Front (FN), meanwhile, set a record by winning two seats in the house for the first time in what its leader Marine Le Pen described as a “historic victory.” The conservative UMP party of Hollande’s predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy and its allies from the centrist UDI have a majority of between 10 and 20 seats, according to partial results.
Stephane Ravier, one of the two successful FN candidates, reflected the party’s upbeat mood, saying: “Now there is only one more door to push open, that of the Elysee (presidential palace).”
The elections saw more than 87,500 regional and local elected officials nationwide vote for their preferred candidate, six months after the Socialists suffered a drubbing in municipal polls that saw the right make significant gains.
France’s upper house is not chosen by universal suffrage but by a “super-electorate” of elected representatives who vote to renew roughly half of the 348-seat Senate every three years.
While the Senate does not wield as much influence as the lower house National Assembly—which has the final say on voting bills through — a swing to the right comes as another blow for Hollande, the most unpopular president in modern French history.
His Socialist government has struggled to contain an economic crisis in France, where zero-growth, sky-high unemployment, a bulging deficit and heavy taxes are taking their toll.
AFP
