Marine Le Pen faces a shock defeat at the hands of the far-Left and Emmanuel Macron, exit polls predicted, after French voters turned out in force to keep her and the hard-Right from power.
In a disappointing result for the National Rally (RN) leader, the New Popular Front, an uneasy alliance of centre-Left, green and hard-Left parties, was predicted to win the snap parliamentary election with between 172 and 192 seats.
It had vowed a “total break” with Mr Macron’s unpopular pensions and welfare reforms and its leaders called on the president to respect the results of the second round run-off, which point to France having a hung parliament three weeks before the Paris Olympics.
Mr Macron’s Ensemble (Together) alliance will win between 150 and 170 seats, confounding predictions of wipeout after he came third in the first round. RN will win between 132 and 152 seats and be third rather than the expected dominant force, according to the usually reliable exit polls.
RN was the clear winner in the first round of the vote called by Mr Macron after he was trounced by Ms Le Pen in June’s European elections but fell to third on Sunday, according to the poll.
Ms Le Pen had declared her party had “practically wiped out” Emmanuel Macron after winning the first round of voting on June 30.
Power will now move away from the Elysée Palace to the French parliament as Mr Macron enters a period of “cohabitation” with a prime minister very likely to be from the Left, which will leave him confined to a far lesser role, in charge of foreign and defence affairs.
RN was the clear winner in the first round of the vote called by Mr Macron after he was trounced by Ms Le Pen in June’s European elections but fell to third on Sunday, according to the poll.