By Gabriel Stargardter, Elizabeth Pineau and Juliette Jabkhiro, Reuters
Tagged and defaced campaign posters in Montaigu-Vendee ahead of the second round of the French legislative elections on Sunday, local time. Photo: Mathieu Thomasset / Hans Lucas via AFP
France is on course for a hung parliament in Sunday's election, with a leftist alliance unexpectedly taking the top spot ahead of the far right, in a major upset that was set to bar Marine Le Pen's National Rally from running the government.
The outcome, if confirmed, will leave parliament divided in three big groups with hugely different platforms and no tradition at all of working together.
The leftist alliance, which gathers the hard left, the Socialists and Greens, who have long been at odds with each other, was forecast to win between 172 and 215 seats out of 577, according to pollsters' projections based on early results from a sample of polling stations.
These projections are usually reliable.
Cries of joy and tears of relief broke out at the leftist alliance's gathering in Paris when the estimates were announced. At the Greens' headquarters activists screamed in joy, embracing each other.
By contrast there was stunned silence, clenched jaws and tears at the far-right party headquarters, as young National Rally members checked their phones.
The result would in any case be humiliating for Emmanuel Macron, whose centrist alliance, which he founded to underpin his first presidential run in 2017, was projected to be narrowly second and win 150-180 seats.
Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. Photo: AFP
But it will also be a major disappointment for Le Pen's nationalist, eurosceptic National Rally.
The National Rally, which had for weeks been projected to win the election, was seen getting 115 to 155 seats.
The first official results were expected later on Sunday local time (Monday morning New Zealand time), with the results from most, if not all, constituencies likely to be in by the end of the day or the early hours of Monday (Monday afternoon New Zealand time).
Voters have punished Macron and his ruling alliance for a cost of living crisis and failing public services, as well as over-immigration and security.
Le Pen and her party tapped into those grievances, spreading their appeal way beyond their traditional strongholds along the Mediterranean coast and in the country's northern rust belt.
But the leftwing alliance managed to edge them out of the first spot.
That was in part thanks to some limited cooperation by Macron's centrist Together alliance and the left, designed to block the far right's ascent to power.
Le Pen's rivals pulled more than 200 candidates out of three-way races in the second round in a bid to create a unified anti-National Rally vote.
The constitution mandates that there can be no new parliamentary election for another year, so an immediate repeat vote is not an option.
- Reuters