France's far-right National Rally (RN) stands to gain practical institutional advantages after securing its first-ever parliamentary group in the Senate, but the breakthrough will not fundamentally alter the country's broader political landscape, an expert said. Following the Senate elections on Sept. 27, the RN is set to form the group in the upper house for the first time. It is being established jointly with the Union of the Right for the Republic, a small right-wing party founded by Eric Ciotti, a longtime conservative who broke with The Republicans to ally with the RN, bringing together about 15 senators, according to preliminary results.
Under Senate rules, at least 10 senators are required to form a group in the French Senate -- a threshold the RN has cleared for the first time, with 178 of its 348 seats at stake in the vote. The mainstream right remains dominant in the upper chamber, where Senate President Gerard Larcher is expected to be re-elected on Thursday, according to the French press.
In a recent interview with the China Media Group (CMG), Stephane Zumsteeg, director of the Public Affairs and Social Research Department at Ipsos, said the breakthrough gives the far-right party a louder voice and new procedural leverage in the chamber, though its weight there remains modest.
"When you have at least 10 senators, you can form a political group, a parliamentary group in the Senate. This carries practical significance because it grants you institutional advantages, such as more speaking time in debates and the right to put questions directly to the government. However, this influence is limited because the French Senate has more than 300 members," he said.
The milestone comes ahead of France's presidential election next April, with RN candidate Marine Le Pen polling strongly among first-round contenders, turning the spotlight on the party's core policy ambitions, particularly its long-standing platform on immigration. "Voters' expectations of her (Marine Le Pen) will concentrate on one specific area -- the very foundation upon which the RN has built its success since its inception: immigration. This means immediately halting illegal immigration and establishing a system of 'national preference,' meaning certain rights, opportunities and social benefits should go to French nationals first, and not necessarily to foreigners," said Zumsteeg.
Zumsteeg cautioned that as immigration policy is heavily tethered to European Union legal frameworks and the Schengen Agreement, France cannot easily circumvent existing international treaties unilaterally. Should the RN eventually capture executive power, its handling of immigration would serve as a definitive test of its wider European strategy and its capacity to deliver practical governance on critical public issues, he said.
France's far-right RN clears Senate group threshold, but no political reset expected: expert
