The French far right wins with 33.15% of the votes with the result almost definitive

Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) has won a landslide victory in the first round of the French legislative elections, winning 33.15% of the vote alongside her conservative allies, according to the Interior Ministry, which published provisional results on Monday.

The left-wing coalition of the New Popular Front (NFP) won 27.99% of the votes and thus became the second largest political force, ahead of the outgoing majority of President Emmanuel Macron, which is the big loser of the election with 20.04%.

The Republicans, the party of the classic right, which has been blown up by the pact of its president, Eric Ciotti, with RN, got 6.57% on its own and 10.23% if the votes of other right-wing candidates are added.

In this first round, where turnout reached a particularly high level of 66.71%, 37 deputies from RN, 32 from the NFP, two from the Macronist bloc and three for LR and its allies have already been elected.

Ahead of the second round, which will be held next Sunday, RN and its partners will contest 485 of the 577 constituencies, and its candidates finished first in 297 of them in the first round.

This gives an idea of ​​the potential of the far right, which all polling institutes predict will be, by far, the leading political group in the next National Assembly.

The question remains whether it will be an absolute majority, that is, with at least 289 seats, which is the condition that Le Pen and her candidate for prime minister, Jordan Bardella, have set for forming a government.

One of the three major polling institutes is considering, in its projections for seats for next Sunday, this hypothesis of an absolute majority within the possible range.

The left-wing coalition has managed to get its candidates to qualify for the second round in 446 constituencies, although they only came first in 157 of them.

Its leaders have announced that they will systematically withdraw candidates who have finished in third place and who have to compete with an RN candidate with a chance of winning.

The Macronist bloc will theoretically be able to contest 319 constituencies in the second round, but it was only in first position in 69 of them.

The slogans within this camp since the first results were known last night have been of variable geometry regarding the possibility that, in order to prevent RN from winning some seats, its candidates who are in a difficult position will resign.

All this must be finalised by 6pm on Tuesday, when the deadline for submitting candidacies for the second round will close.