France's far-right National Rally (RN) party and its allies have secured a record 14 seats in the Senate, effectively quadrupling its representation in the 348-seat chamber just months before a presidential election.

Sunday's indirect election marked the first time Marine Le Pen's party cleared the 10-seat threshold required to form its own caucus in the upper house.

"The results have exceeded our expectations," Le Pen, the party's leader and presidential candidate, said in a post on X. "This is a historic victory, and a major milestone with the formation for the first time of a group in the Senate."

According to a tally of results, nine RN senators were elected on Sunday, in addition to the three who had won seats in 2023. A further two were elected from RN ally Eric Ciotti's Union of the Right for the Republic (UDR) party.

RN president Jordan Bardella confirmed that the party's senators would form a group with their UDR allies.

The far-right party first entered the Senate with two seats in 2014, when it was still known as the National Front. It won three seats in the 2023 round of elections.

Half of the upper chamber is elected through indirect voting every three years, with local elected officials casting ballots. Senators serve six-year terms.

RN emerged as the single largest party in the lower-house National Assembly after President Emmanuel Macron called snap elections in 2024, though it fell well short of a majority.

Ciotti had quit the mainstream Republicans (LR) party in 2024 after calling for an alliance with the far right. The upper chamber's LR president, Gerard Larcher, 77, is expected to be re-elected to that position next week.

The right, centre, and left-wing Socialists looked set to remain the three major forces in the upper house, according to initial results. The hard-left France Unbowed party also won a Senate seat for the first time.

Le Pen is preparing to run in next year's presidential election, scheduled for a first round in April, when centrist Macron steps down.