Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and its allies have won 14 seats in France’s 348-seat Senate, a breakthrough on Sunday that gives the party a formal group in the upper house for the first time. Le Pen called it “a historic victory, and a major milestone” in a post on X.
The numbers
The RN took nine seats on September 27, adding to the three it already held from 2023. Eric Ciotti’s Union of the Right for the Republic (UDR) won two more. Party president Jordan Bardella said RN senators will form a joint group with their UDR partners. A formal group requires at least 10 senators, and it unlocks extra floor time, staff funding and the power to launch parliamentary inquiries.
France elects a new president next spring, and Le Pen currently leads first-round polls. RN MP Sébastien Chenu said the result shows there is “no more glass ceiling” for the party.
Immigration at the centre
The result fits a pattern now visible across Europe, where two issues, immigration and the cost of the Ukraine war, keep pushing voters to the right.
Immigration sits at the heart of the RN’s rise. A September Ipsos BVA-CESI poll found 64 per cent support for the party’s “national priority” plan, which would give French citizens first claim on certain benefits and rights. The same poll found that half of respondents think the RN offers the best proposals on immigration or Islam, and 53 per cent believe the party could restore order, up from 42 per cent in 2017. Immigration now ranks as a leading concern for 31 per cent of voters, up four points since July.
Le Pen has built her campaign around this sentiment, calling national priority her first social measure when she launched her fourth presidential bid on September 13. The governing centre has struggled to counter it. President Emmanuel Macron’s favourability has fallen to 16 per cent, the lowest of his time in office.
The war’s economic toll
The war in Ukraine supplies the second driver. Russia’s 2022 invasion triggered an energy crisis across the continent, and inflation topped 20 per cent in some European countries. Sanctions on Moscow have also pushed up energy prices for European economies. French diesel prices have passed €2.40 a litre following disruptions to Middle East supply, and populist parties have seized on the EU’s push to cut Russian energy imports.
Le Pen has offered a direct response, proposing to cut VAT on fuel from 20 per cent to 5.5 per cent. “The French need it to go to work,” she said. Public patience with the war is also wearing thin. YouGov data from February showed that in France, Germany and Spain, support for a negotiated peace has overtaken support for holding out until Russian withdrawal. The RN, however, does not court Moscow, and Le Pen and Bardella said this month that they would never let Russia dictate French policy, pairing a firm foreign line with the promise of relief for households at home.
A wider European trend
France is not an isolated case. In Germany, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) topped the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state election on September 20, campaigning against high living costs and calling for a return to cheap Russian gas. In Slovakia, Prime Minister Robert Fico has linked Europe’s rhetoric on the war to its failures on energy and illegal migration.
Brussels itself has shifted position. In June, members of the European Parliament voted 418 to 218 in favour of “return hubs” outside the EU for failed asylum seekers. The European Commission says only about one in five people with removal orders actually leaves.
A contested picture
Critics dispute the reading that immigration is driving the continent’s politics as much as the right claims. Irregular arrivals to the EU fell 26 per cent in 2025, their lowest level since 2021, and purchasing power, not immigration, remains the top concern for French voters at 54 per cent in the Ipsos poll. The Republicans and their centrist allies also retain control of the Senate, and the National Assembly still holds the final word on legislation.
Le Pen’s camp sees momentum regardless. Edwige Diaz, the new RN senator for Gironde, called the result “very useful” ahead of the presidential election. The RN formally opens its campaign in Orléans on October 25, with the first round of voting set for April 18, 2027. The new Senate group cannot rewrite French law on its own, but it gives Le Pen a louder platform as voters weigh borders, bills and the war.
