The Senate - also known as the Upper Chamber - is composed of 321 senators:

304 for the departments of mainland France and the overseas departments
3 for the overseas territories
1 for Mayotte
1 for Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon
12 represent French expatriates

Senators are elected for a period of nine years by an electoral college of approximately 145,000 persons

One-third of the Senate (i.e. about a hundred senators) is renewed every three years. For this purpose the departments are arranged in alphabetical order and divided into three series of equal size, denoted A, B and C. Candidates for election to the senate must be at least 35 years of age. The last renewal took place on Sunday 27 September 1998 (series A).

The main feature of the role of the senator is stability. Senators are less susceptible than deputies to political trends. They have time to acquire long parliamentary experience, to specialise, and to plan their action over the longer term.

The Senate has a very large proportion of locally elected representatives. Part of its role is to represent local authorities, with whose problems its members are particularly well acquainted.

For more informations go to http://www.senat.fr