France's far-right National front party was today celebrating a 'historic victory' as it won its first seats in the upper house of parliament
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The party (FN), led by Marine Le Pen, entered the senate for the first time, securing two seats.
It was at the expense of Francois Hollande's struggling left-wing government, which is rapidly losing its grip on parliament.
FN leader Le Pen, who is anti-immigration and anti-euro, said the election was a 'historic victory' for the party once synonymous with shaven-headed thugs and Third Reich nostalgia.
She added: 'These results are beyond what we hoped for. Each day that passes, our ideas are increasingly being adopted by the French people. We have great potential.'
Stephane Ravier, one of the two newly elected FN senators, said: 'There is only one door left for us to push and it is that of the Elysee [presidential palace].'
Half of the Senate's 348 seats were up for grabs in the election, with only some 158,000 people, the vast majority local councillors, able to vote.
The conservative UMP party of former President Nicolas Sarkozy and its centre-right ally, the UDI party, won 188 seats –13 seats more than needed for an absolute majority, according to the latest figures released early on Sep 29,2014 Monday morning.
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