2014 French Senate election

2014 French Senate election

← 2011 28 September 2014 2017 →
178 of 348 seats in the Senate 175 seats needed for a majority
Majority party Minority party Third party   Leader Jean-Claude Gaudin Didier Guillaume François Zocchetto Party UMP PS UDI Leader since 1 October 2008 15 April 2014 9 February 2011 Leader's seat Bouches-du-Rhône Drôme Mayenne Seats before 130 128 31 Seats after 144 111 43 Swing 14 17 12   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Éliane Assassi Jacques Mézard Jean-Vincent Placé Party PCF RDSE EELV Leader since 19 September 2012 1 October 2011 11 January 2012 Leader's seat Seine-Saint-Denis Cantal Essonne Seats before 21 19 10 Seats after 18 13 10 Swing 3 6
President of the Senate before election Jean-Pierre Bel PS President-elect of the Senate Gérard Larcher UMP

The 2014 French senate election was held on 28 September 2014 and featured results which saw the senate being reclaimed by the centre-right party Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).^[1] The right-wing conservative victory reversed the results which came during the previous 2011 French senate election, which was the first time since the foundation of the Fifth Republic in 1958 that the upper house of the French government had been won by a majority of left-wing candidates.^[2] Following the victory of the UMP, Gérard Larcher was nominated and subsequently elected to the position of president of the senate, taking the place of Jean-Pierre Bel who had served in the position following the Socialist Party's senate victory in 2011.^[3] The Far-right National Front party also claimed its first two seats in the senate election, which their leader Marine Le Pen described as "a historic victory".^[4]