France's left wrested the Senate from the right in indirect elections on Sunday, taking the majority of seats in the upper house of parliament for the first time in more than 50 years - a blow to conservative president Nicolas Sarkozy.
Seven months before presidential elections, Sarkozy's party downplayed what it said was a narrow win - up to three seats, according to officials from the president's party.
The minister for parliamentary relations, Patrick Ollier, said the results had "no national political significance". Final results of the voting to fill half the seats in the 348-seat house were not in, but the Socialist party leader in the Senate announced the victory.
"This is a day that will mark history," Jean-Pierre Bel, head of the Senate's Socialist party, said.
The Senate president has a consequential role under the French constitution - as interim leader should the nation's president become incapacitated.
The upper house, a 17th-century palace at the foot of the Luxembourg gardens in Paris, is sometimes derided as an institution that specialises in handing out rubber stamps. Nevertheless it can initiate bills and slow down their passage.
The right had controlled the Senate since the start of the Fifth Republic in 1958.
"For the first time, change is in motion ... This is a real affront to the right," Bel said.
He estimated the left had won 24 to 26 new seats. It needed 23 seats to gain a majority. Final results were not expected immediately.
The result is a further blow to the profile of the already unpopular Sarkozy, providing the Socialist party with prestige and political capital.
Senate president Gérard Larcher, of Sarkozy's party, conceded the left "made a real push ... larger than I thought" - but said he would seek to renew his mandate.
Leading members of Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement party, known as UMP, stressed the forthcoming vote on 1 October for the president of the chamber.
Socialists attributed their success to discontent in France's towns and rural heartland, the home bases of the 71,890 delegates - regionally and locally elected officials who cast ballots to fill the 170 seats. Senators who were elected on Sunday have six-year mandates.
Jean-François Copé, head of Sarkozy's UMP, said the election results were "a disappointment but not a surprise".
"In no way is it a disavowal of the politics of the government," he said.
In the presidential elections, the "totality of voters" will take part - not delegates voting to fill half a chamber, he said.
The Socialist party entered the elections confidently after a string of leftist victories in regional and local elections since 2008. The party elections chief, Christophe Borgel, said local officials "have the feeling of being held in scorn".
A 2010 territorial reform will put several thousand regional and general councillors out of jobs. Some of these officials have complained government funds were not keeping up with increased responsibilities handed over to regions in a 2004 reform.
François Hollande, a favourite among several Socialist party members seeking the party's presidential candidacy, said a leftist Senate majority would serve a Socialist party president well because it would be the first time the party could work with a leftist majority in the Senate.
Sarkozy will not be the first president to preside over the nation with opponents in control of at least one house of parliament.
Socialist president François Mitterrand dealt for each of his 14 years in office with his political rivals in the Senate and was forced to cohabit during part of his mandate with a conservative prime minister, Jacques Chirac, who succeeded him as president.
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