Senator Mathieu Darnaud succeeds Bruno Retailleau at the head of the LR group in the upper house

Former first vice-president of the Senate, the senator from Ardèche will have the first mission of reacting to the general policy declaration of the head of government.

He was the only candidate in the running since Roger Karoutchi’s candidacy was withdrawn on Friday. On Tuesday, October 1, Ardèche senator Mathieu Darnaud took charge of the Les Républicains (LR) group in the Senate. He succeeds Bruno Retailleau, who became Minister of the Interior in the government of Michel Barnier.

The 49-year-old parliamentarian, close to the President of the Senate Gérard Larcher, was elected unanimously by the votes cast within the first group of the upper house, with 131 elected officials, despite 39 blank or invalid votes, according to a parliamentary source cited by AFP. Little known to the general public, Mathieu Darnaud was mayor of Guilherand-Granges, a town of 11,000 inhabitants, between 2008 and 2017, before being elected senator in 2014.

The one who until then occupied the key position of first vice-president of the Senate will have the first mission of reacting to the general policy declaration of the head of government, delivered Tuesday in the hemicycle of the Assembly.

“It is for me a mission which will be exhilarating, but which will require both unity in our group and the desire to support Michel Barnier and his government”, reacted the new leader of the senatorial right. And this “while maintaining, because it is important, the independence of our group”he added, promising to “respect sensitivities” of the group with his “trademark: consultation and dialogue”.

The new leader of the senatorial right did not shake up the team in place, reappointing the same vice-presidents as his predecessor, namely, the senator from Isère Frédérique Puissat and the senator from the Somme Laurent Somon