Yannick Jadot, Annick Girardin, Ian Brossat… The senatorial elections brought new entrants to the Luxembourg Palace this Sunday.
The Luxembourg Palace renewed almost half of its seats on Sunday (170 out of 348), confirming the majority of the right and the center. While most outgoing senators have been re-elected, a few new faces are preparing to take their first steps in the Upper House. Le Figaro focuses on six of them.
Yannick Jadot, the former environmentalist candidate elected to the Senate
Yannick Jadot, senator from Paris. Le Figaro
The gl and steel of the European Parliament will soon give way to the gilding of the Luxembourg Palace to Yannick Jadot. Elected this Sunday, the brand new senator Europe Ecology-The Greens (EELV) leaves Strasbourg prematurely to take up his position as senator of Paris. Some attribute to him ambitions for the town hall of Paris, ambitions if not denied, at least deferred. Asked this Monday morning about FranceinfoYannick Jadot defends himself against any electoral strategy for 2026: “When you run a senatorial campaign and you are elected senator, it is to be senator“.
At 56, the man who was director of campaigns for Greenpeace France from 2002 to 2008, has been pursuing his ecological commitment in Strasbourg since 2009, where he previously served as an EELV MEP. But, due to internal partisan regulations, the former candidate for the 2022 presidential election cannot run for a fourth term in the European Parliament. A welcome new life as a senator.
Agnès Evren, the powerful boss of the Paris LR federation
Agnès Evren, senator from Paris. JOEL SAGET / AFP
She took her revenge. Ousted from eligible places on her party list, the powerful boss of the LR federation of Paris, Agnes Evrenpresented herself in dissent from the group led by Rachida Dati. A successful bet, since the former spokesperson for Valérie Pécresse in 2022 won a seat in the capital on Sunday.
Supported by the centrists, Agnès Evren should however swell the ranks of the right-wing senatorial majority, confirmed during the partial renewal of the Upper House. Like Yannick Jadot, she must leave the European Parliament in Strasbourg, where she has only been sitting since 2019.
Ian Brossat, Fabien Roussel’s spokesperson
Ian Brossat, senator from Paris. STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP
The PCF spokesperson Ian Brossat also took his very first steps at the Luxembourg Palace. Anne Hidalgo’s housing deputy is now a senator for the capital. After three unhappy legislative campaigns in 2007, 2012 and 2017 and a resounding failure in the 2019 European elections, the third candidate on the “Rally of the Left and Environmentalists” list – who obtained 54.58% of the vote – was almost certain to be elected to the Senate.
This 43-year-old ociate professor of modern literature had led the presidential campaign of Fabien Roussel in 2022, to reach 2.28% of the votes in the first round.
Annick Girardin, Macron’s former minister
Annick Girardin, senator from Saint-Pierre and Miquelon. BERTRAND GUAY / AFP
It was played out in a pocket handkerchief. In Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, where only 39 electors were called to the polls, the former Minister of Seas and Overseas Territories (2017-2020), Annick Girardin, became a senator by three small votes. It is in this archipelago of eight islands that this member of the Radical Party (PRV) won her first mandate as a deputy in 2007.
The former Minister of the Civil Service under François Hollande will sit within the Macronist European Democratic and Social Rally (RDSE) group, which should have around twenty parliamentarians. Not enough to make us forget the setback inflicted in New Caledonia on the only member of the government in the running, Sonia Backès (Citizenship), beaten by the Kanak separatist, Robert Xowie.
Francis Szpiner, the former tenor of the Parisian bar
Francis Szpiner, senator from Paris. LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP
From the bar to the bays of the Palais du Luxembourg. The former lawyer and mayor LR of the 16th arrondist, Francis Szpiner, was elected senator of Paris on Sunday. Unlike his colleague Agnès Evren, he appeared on the official list of the group led by Rachida Dati.
The former advisor to Jacques Chirac at the Élysée missed the mark in the last legislative elections by losing in the capital to the Macronist Benjamin Haddad. Last December, during the election of the president of LR, Francis Szpiner supported the candidacy of the right-wing boss in the Senate, Bruno Retailleau.
Mathilde Ollivier, the new youngest
Mathilde Ollivier, senator for French people established outside France. Screenshot of Mathilde Ollivier’s Twitter account.
At 29, ecologist Mathilde Ollivier became the youngest member of the Senate this Sunday. Within a few months, she therefore won the title from the socialist Rémi Cardon, born like her in 1994 and aged 26 when she was elected in 2020. Now a senator for French people established outside France, the Breton explained on the microphone of Public Senate not living in France for ten years. Mathilde Ollivier settled in Vienna, Austria, four years ago, becoming an advisor for French expatriates two years later.
Involved in politics since the climate marches of 2018, the elected EELV always spoke on Public Senate about the issues of her election: “As a young woman elected to the Senate (…), it is important for me to represent the climate generation and to have representation and renewal of our institutions.»