France Senate election, September 24, 2017

[Tirnam]

This is the final act of an intense and dramatic election season.

Almost half of the seats (170 out of 348) will be at stake in the series 1 départements: the départements between the number 37 (Indre-et-Loire) and 66 (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) the départements of Île-de-France, the overseas regions of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Réunion, Mayotte, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon and Nouvelle Calédonie, and six of the senators for French abroad.
The senators are elected on the département scale, the number of senators by département is proportional with the population, from one senator in Lozère to 12 in Paris.
For the départements with one or two senators the electoral system is a two-round system, for the département with more than 3 senators it is a proportional system with the highest average.
The senators are elected for a 6 years term, so the seats in play were elected in 2011, a great year for the left, in that year they gained the control of the Senate for the first time.

Map with the seats in play in the different départements.


The electorate
It's an indirect vote, around 160,000 electors, 95% of them are delegates from municipal councils, the rest come from departmental council, regional council, deputies and senators.
The vote is mandatory.

Current Senate and projection by Le Monde


So, despite the fact that it is an indirect system and that LREM has no local elected, the effect of the political implosion could be felt in the Senate. LR thanks to its wins in the local elections in 2014 and 2015, limit the damage but still could loose a dozen of seats (when in 2011 it was a bad year for them). For the PS Le Monde projects they could loose half of their seats in play, even more for the communist. EELV could be absent of the Senate.
On the paper that gives the majority for the right but only on the paper, UC regroups UDI and MoDem  and if in the projection the UC group is stable inside the group the MoDem will win seats, the UDI will lose some. The RDSE supports the government, and some in the PS group are pro-Macron.
So in the end le Monde projects that the number of senators in favor of the presidential majority could reach 135. Not enough to win the control of the Senate, but enough to prevent any other majority.

[Tirnam]

So did Wauquiez and the hard-right take over LR? Since there aren't meaningful differences with Macron on economics they're probably going to compete on immigration/integration/identity. Have there been any polls on the 2022 presidential election? It's premature but it would be interesting to see how Macron's unpopularity affects his scores.

He will win in December, with a strong right-wing policy on identity and immigration but he faces a possible revolt inside LR which could split the party (this is a threat from Pécresse for exemple) and to avoid that he tries to soften his stances on some issue (like same-sex marriage for exemple).
No polls for 2022 but interestingly Macron's popularity went up in September in the latest Ifop (+5 at 45%). Still unpopular but the fact that he gains some popularity when he officially launches his reforms and faces social movements is something unusual according to Ifop.

Final results for the Senate
Communists: 12 (-6)
PS: 81 (-5)
Center-left: 12 (-4)
LREM: 28 (-1)
Centrists: 50 (+8)
LR: 159 (+17)
FN: 2 (=)
Others: 4 (-6)