2023 French Senate election

Senatorial elections took place on 24 September 2023 to renew 172 of the 348 seats in the Senate of the French Fifth Republic. The Republicans emerged as the largest party, but lost several seats.

Senatorial Elections of 2020
The Senatorial Elections of 2020 lead to a renforcement of the right-wing and center majority. The parties making up majority of the National Assembly failed to gain ascendancy, while the Ecologist group reappeared. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the renewal of six senators representing French citizens living abroad was pushed back a year, and the French consular elections were themselves postponed till May 2021. As a result, their renewal took place in September 2021.

In its previous configuration from the elections of 2022, the senate was composed of 3 major groups (REP, the Centrist Union group, and the SOCR) and 6 other minor groups. The upper house is thus predominantly right- and center-leaning. The Republicans and the Centrist Union group had 202 out of 348 seats. The main force of opposition came from the SOCR with 64 senators.

2022 Presidential and Legislative Elections
These elections took place 16 months after the 2022 French presidential election, and saw the reelection of the outgoing president Emmanuel Macron, and 14 months after the June 2022 French legislative election, which marked the end of the 15th legislature of the French Fifth Republic. The latter led to the recomposition of the National Assembly, the lower house of the French Parlement.

The Right-Wing and Centrists
The senatorial majority of the right and center was the favorite retain the their majority. According to senator Roger Karoutchi of Hauts-de-Seine, the prospects ranged from a loss of 5 seats or a gain of 2 seats within the Senate Republicans, the most important group in terms of the numerical strength in the Senate.

With regard to the centrists, their objective was the surpassing the socialist group and becoming the Senate's secondary political group within the Senate. Numerically, the group counted a loss of 4 seats or even a gain of 3 seats.