Leftist coalition wins most seats in France's snap election — pollsters

A loose alliance of French left-wing parties thrown together for snap elections was on course Sunday to become the biggest parliamentary bloc and beat the far right, according to shock projected results.

The New Popular Front (NFP) was formed last month after President Emmanuel Macron called snap elections, bringing together socialists, greens, communists and the hard-left into one camp.

Veteran presidential candidate Marine Le Pen's National Rally (RN) led the race after the June 30 first round, with opinion polls predicting that she would lead the biggest party in Parliament after Sunday's run-off.

But projections based on vote samples by four major polling agencies and seen by AFP, showed no group on course for an absolute majority, and the left-wing NFP ahead of both Macron's centrist Ensemble and Le Pen's eurosceptic, anti-immigration RN.

The left-wing group was predicted to take between 172 and 215 seats, the president's alliance on 150 to 180 and the National Rally — which had hoped for an absolute majority — in a surprise third place on 115 to 155 seats.

This marks a new high-water mark for the far right but falls well short of a victory that would have been a rebuke for Macron, who called the snap election in what he said was bid to halt France's slide towards the political extremes.

Hard-left France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, giving his first reaction, called on French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal to resign and said the left-wing coalition was ready to govern.

Macron will attend next week's landmark NATO summit in Washington a diminished but not defeated figure and France has been left without a stable ruling majority less than three weeks before Paris hosts the Olympics.

'Historic occasion'

Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) and the controversial figurehead of the NFP coalition, demanded that the left be allowed to form a government.

"Its constituent parts, the united left, have shown themselves equal to the historic occasion and in their own way have foiled the trap set for the country. In its own way, once again, it has saved the Republic."

The left-wing group was predicted to take between 172 and 215 seats, the president's centrist allies are on 150 to 180 and the National Rally in a surprise third place on 115 to 155 seats.

This marks a new high water mark for the far right, but falls well short of the victory they had hoped for, which would have seen Le Pen's 28-year-old lieutenant Jordan Bardella become prime minister.

Instead, he expressed fury.

Bardella dubbed the local electoral pacts that saw the left and centrists avoid splitting the anti-RN vote as "alliance of dishonour" that had thrown "France into the arms of Jean-Luc Melenchon's extreme left".

"I say this tonight with gravity. Depriving millions of French people of the possibility of seeing their ideas brought to power will never be a viable destiny for France," he said, vowing to carry on the fight.

Last week saw more than 200 tactical-voting pacts between the centre and left-wing candidates in seats to attempt to prevent the RN from winning an absolute majority.

This has been hailed as a return of the anti-far right "Republican Front" first summoned when Le Pen's father Jean-Marie faced Jacques Chirac in the run-off of the 2002 presidential elections.