2008 French Senate election

Indirect Senate elections were held for 114 of the 343 seats in the French Senate on 21 September 2008.[1] With this election, the number of senators was increased from 331 to 343; Saint Barthélemy and Saint Martin elected two senators each for the first time. Furthermore, this election was the last to be held under the old system: prior to this election, senators were elected in three classes for nine-year terms. Under the new system instituted in 2011, senators are elected for six-year terms in two classes.[2]

2008 French Senate election
21 September 2008
A third of seats (114) to the French Senate
  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader Henri de Raincourt Jean-Pierre Bel Michel Mercier
Party UMP PS UDF
Leader's seat Yonne Ariège Rhône
Last election 159 95 30
Seats won 151 116 29
Seat change 8 21 1
President of the Senate before election

Christian Poncelet
UMP

 Elected President of the Senate

Gérard Larcher
UMP

This article is part of a series on the
Politics of France

New seats

Twelve new seats were filled in this election. They were divided in the following way: 1 new Senator each for the Ain, Alpes-Maritimes, Bouches-du-Rhône, Drôme, Eure-et-Loir, Haute-Garonne, Gironde, Hérault, and Guyane départements and one in French Polynesia.

The election marked the first time that French Polynesia had two seats in the Senate instead of just one.[3] The President of French Polynesia Gaston Tong Sang and another member of his coalition, Béatrice Vernaudon, a former member of the French National Assembly who lost her seat in June 2007, contested the seats.[3] Former French Polynesian President Gaston Flosse ran for his Tahoeraa Huiraatira Party and teamed up with Richard Tuheiava, a member of the pro-independence party Union for Democracy.[3]

System

Electoral college

For the 114 seats up for election, the electoral college was composed of 50,720 elected officials (49,602 in metropolitan France). Of these, 48,453 were local councillors, 178 were MPs, 765 were regional councillors and 1,504 were general councillors.

Election

Result
 
Parties and coalitions Abbr. 2004 a 2008 ± 2011 ±
Union for a Popular Movement (Union pour un mouvement populaire) UMP 159 56 151 –8 132 –19
Centrist Union-UDF (Union centriste–Union pour la démocratie française) UC-UDF 30 4 29 –1 31 +2
Socialist Party (Parti socialiste) PS 95 29 116 +21 131 +15
Communist, Republican and Citizen (Communiste, républicain, et citoyen) CRC 23 3 23 +0 21 –2
Europe Écologie–The Greens (Europe Écologie–Les Verts) VEC 0 +0 0 +0 10 +10
European Democratic and Social Rally (Rassemblement démocratique et social européen) RDSE 17 8 17 +0 16 –1
Total UMP, UC-UDF and one RDSE (Right) 189 60 180 –9 164 –16
Total "Presidential Majority" PS, CRC, VEC and all but one RDSE (Left) 118 32 139 +21 177 +38
Non-Inscrits NI 6 1 7 +1 7 +0
Total 331 114 343 +12 348 +5
a - Seats up for election (Serie A)
Source: Public Senat
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gollark: Because programmers somehow can't just convert stuff to machine code given a mere 120 billion clock cycles to work with.
gollark: For Haskell.
gollark: Well, somewhat, although incremental compiles seemed quite fast if I remember right.
gollark: I mean, Rust compiles painlessly if slowly, Nim manages that but somewhat quickly, even Haskell complies quite nicely.

References
  1. French Senate Elections 2008
  2. lefigaro.fr (2008-09-21). "Le Figaro - Politique : Sénat : la droite devrait contenir la poussée de la gauche" (in French). Lefigaro.fr.
  3. "Tong Sang To Contest French Senate Elections". Pacific Magazine. 2008-08-25. Retrieved 2008-08-26.
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