FRENCH PRESIDENT Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-wing government looked set to lose its majority in the French senate last night, with the left on course to take control of the upper house for the first time in more than half a century.
Early results from the indirect elections showed that left-wing candidates took at least 23 seats from the ruling UMP party, securing them an absolute majority for the first time since the current republic was founded in 1958.
A left-leaning senate will not be able to derail Mr Sarkozy’s legislative plans but the loss of a longstanding bastion for the right is a symbolic setback just seven months before a presidential election.
The shift to the left, which UMP senate leader Gérard Larcher described as having “seismic” consequences, was greeted with jubilation by the opposition.
François Hollande, the frontrunner to win the Socialist Party’s primary and challenge Mr Sarkozy in the 2012 election, said the result would mark “a serious failure” for the president. “It’s a historic event,” he said.
“Nicolas Sarkozy will be the president who lost the right’s majority in the senate.”
Another primary contestant, Ségolène Royal, said the result marked “a very deep rejection by local elected officials of the unfair and inefficient policies of the Sarkozy system, which are plunging the country into one of the worst economic and moral crises it has known”.
The senate is not chosen by universal suffrage but by a “super-electorate” of about 72,000 mayors and local and regional councillors, choosing from regional lists of candidates.
About half the seats in the 348-strong house were up for grabs in the poll, and the left needed to add only 22 more seats to win a majority.
Under the French constitution, the national assembly has the final say on all legislation, and there is currently no major draft law that a left-wing senate could delay.