Please regularly refresh this page for latest reports, which appear top of page. A brief guide to the elections, how they work and what's at stake in this second round, can be found at the bottom of this page. All times local (CET).
-------------------------
8am: The final results are in and Emmanuel Macron's LREM has won 309 seats and its allies MoDem 42, giving the government 351 seats in all and a large majority, if not quite the tidal wave some had predicted. In the National Assembly 289 seats are needed for a majority. The Socialist Party picked up just 29 seats, while the conservative Les Républicains (LR) and their centre-right allies from the UDI won 131 seats. The radical left France Insoumise (LFI) have 17 MPs, while the French Communist Party has ten. The far-right Front National has eight MPs.
2.45am: That is the end of our coverage tonight. Final official results will appear here later on Monday. The estimations tonight (see 1.45am) are not likely to change in any significant manner. They leave President Emmanuel Macron with a large parliamentary majority, and all the traditional parties in disarray.
But the result, set to the backdrop of a record low turnout, estimated at about 43.4%, paints a divided political representation. In broad terms, the higher social classes which represent the majority of Macron’s LREM candidates elected on Sunday, are about to implement major reforms, notably the labour law reforms, that will affect lower social classes who appear to make up a large number of those who failed to vote this weekend. Macron’s reputation for strong negotiating skills, and especially the ability of his government in the matter, will soon be put to the test to avoid a major division of French society, one that pitches parliament’s legitimacy against popular revolt, in the months ahead. Importantly, the reforms that Macron will introduce were pinned to his election programme.
Meanwhile, the failure of Macron’s opponents to mobilise their perceived base of support, on the Right and the Left, engages their responsibility in the test to come.
One thing is sure, the months ahead promise to be a fascinating period in French politics.
2.25am: Back to the tensions in Evry, where former socialist prime minister Manuel Valls claimed a narrow victory (by just 139 votes) over his radical-left rival Farida Amrani. There was high tension, not to mention scuffles and insults, after Valls claimed his victory tonight, followed by a first recount. Amrani has said she will ask for an investigation to establish the score, which may end up with a lengthy investigation by the Constitutional Council, lasting several months, during which Valls will be recognised as the winner, and therefore sit in the National Assembly (see our earlier reports timed at 10.45pm and 10.55pm). Amrani said that there were possible anomalies in four polling stations in the constituency, which has a history of local election corruption (see here, and here). The man behind that scandal, Dassault Systems aerospace and defence boss Serge Dassault, had leant his support to Valls for this Sunday’s second-round, which only adds to the intrigue.
This is most certainly an issue that will be a major controversy over the weeks to come, and might just spell the end of Valls’s political future, already compromised by his perceived betrayal of the Left from his time in, and after, government.
2am: The six ministers in Emmanuel Macron’s government who stood in the elections have all been elected (they were required to stand down if not).
1.50am: There are ten other seats estimated to be made up of various independent parties, and notably the Corsican nationalist movement which is credited with three seats in parliament, the first time it has been represented at the National Assembly.
1.45 am: Latest estimations, which will now be confirmed by official figures Monday, give the following results:
Emmanuel Macron’s LREM party obtained 319 seats, while his centre-right allies MoDem obtained 42. That is a comfortable majority among the 577 seats in the National Assembly.
Turnout was a record-low 43.4%, the lowest since 1958.
The conservative Les Républicains (LR) party, its centre-right ally the UDI, and a handful of allied mainstream rightwing candidates obtained a total of 126 seats, principally made up of the LR.
The Socialist Party obtained, according to estimations, 32 seats, which when including its allied mainstream leftwing parties gives it a parliamentary group of 46 seats.
The radical-left France Insoumise party is credited with 16 seats, while its Communist Party ally is estimated to have gained ten seats (totalling 26).
The far-right Front National is estimated to have won eight seats.
11.30pm: We're taking a pause here, but we will be back with a roundup of the latest estimations and reactions.
11.25pm: Predictably – because he’s been very vocal until now in his support for Macron – European Commisssion president Jean-Claude Juncker has sent his congratulations (in the form of a faxed letter) to Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, saying that “this renewed National Assembly, with numerous women elected representatives and representatives from civil society, represents a France that is resolutely modern and determined to inscribe itself in a strong European future”.
11.08pm: European affairs minister Marielle de Sarnez, a senior figure in the centre-right Modem party allied to Emmanuel Macron, has won her Paris constituency despite being embroiled in a developing scandal over allegations that her party, and notably she herself, misused European Parliament funds. The MoDem, founded by Macron’s justice minister François Bayrou and which was allied to Macron’s election presidential campaign, is estimated to have won around 45seats.
“We will have a MoDem parliamentary group, which is what we always said,” commented Marielle de Sarnez tonight. We have taken part in Emmanuel Macron’s victory, so we will therefore be at his side. We cannot be in a [situation of a] unique party, a hegemony. It is for democracy that there is a Modem group alongside a large LREM group.”
10.55pm: There is confusion amid ugly scenes at Evry town hall, where former socialist prime minister Emmanuel Valls has claimed victory over his radical-left rival, with just more than 100 votes separating them. Radical-left supporters, who are claiming a rigged ballot, have been involved in scuffles with police and the town hall has been locked down. Valls’s rival, Farida Amrani, has demanded a recount, claiming several anomalies were witnessed in the counting process.
Valls has become a hated figure for both socialist leftwingers and the radical-left who perceive him as having betrayed the ideals of the Left when in government. The atmosphere in Evry was something of a tinderbox even before the closeness of the score became apparent.
More to come on the events in Evry tonight.
10.45pm: Among the Macron party candidates who are entering active politics for the first time, one of the most high-profile is mathematician Cédric Villani, 43, an academic with a string of prestigious awards, including the Fields Medal. He has won a constituency south-west of Paris with a huge majority over the conservative LR candidate.
10.38pm: Former socialist prime minister Manuel Valls has claimed victory in his political fiefdom in Evry, south of Paris, although there is a recount because of the closeness of the score. Valls, who had a tense relationship with Macron when the latter served as his economy minister, from 2014-2016, caused outrage among Socialist Party leftwingers when he failed to support the party’s presidential candidate Benoît Hamon, a rebel leftwinger who resigned from his government in 2014 and who Valls lost to in primary elections.
Valls subsequently sought to fight his seat on a LREM ticket, but was rejected by the party. As a consolation for what is expected to be his support for the Macron government, the LREM did not place a candidate to stand against him.
Valls is battling for his seat against radical-left candidate Farida Amrani.
10.30pm: One high-profile defeat for the conservative LR party this evening has been that of former minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet in a largely affluent central Paris constituency, beaten by a candidate from President Macron's LREM party. Earlier in the week Kosciusko-Morizet briefly lost consciousness after being knocked down in an attack while out campaigning at a market in the Paris constituency where she was standing. “Despite a clear move by voters in favour of my candidacy compared with the first round, Gilles Le Gendre has won the legislative election in the 2nd constituency,” she wrote on her Facebook page.
10.25pm: More from defeated former socialist education minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem: “Today, what I note from this campaign is that, beyond the never-before-equaled abstention rate and this irrational wave [of support for Macron], our leftwing electorate has been disorientated by the previous [socialist] five-year term [of government]. The reasons must be examined in order to afterwards begin the reconstruction of the Left. As for me, it’s a pause that awaits me. To rediscover my family, to rediscover myself, to work and lead the combat differently.”
10.10pm: In public, at least, most of the FN leadership are still trying to put a brave face on the results, pointing out that while the expected handful of seats it is expected to gain are well down on initial forecasts at the start of the campaign, they are still an advance for a party that has historically had very few MPs (two in the last parliament). “Compared with the [Socialist Party] and [Les Républicains], the Front National is the movement that's resisted the best,” claimed its secretary general Nicolas Bay (who lost the constituency where he was standing). “The very high abstention rate shows that the French people don't agree with Macron's project.”
10.08pm: Former socialist education minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, 39, has been beaten by a LREM candidate, businessman and political novice Bruno Bonnell in the constituency in the Lyon suburbs where her campaign was leant support by several Socialist Party leftwingers. “After six years in public life, it’s a pause that now awaits me,” she Tweeted.
10pm: The conservative LR president of the Geater Paris region, Valérie Pécresse, has called for “top to bottom” changes in the party, claiming the evening's results marked the “end of an era”.
She said: “We have to ask ourselves questions, we didn't ask them before. It's not a defeat it's the end of an era, we haven't been able to change our political thinking since 2012 [editor's note, the presidential elections when Nicolas Sarkozy was defeated by François Hollande]. Our candidates have been beaten because we seemed more attached to the France of yesterday than the one of tomorrow, everything has to be changed from top to bottom.” Pécresse said that infighting between senior party figures had also harmed them, and that now they had to go out collectively and listen to people and start again to reflect on what the party had to offer. “It's completely mad that we haven't spoken about the environment, that we've seemed to be going backwards on equality between men and women,” she added.
9.55pm: The LR mayor of southern city of Nice, Christian Estrosi, has called for the conservative party to have an urgent debate about its political, line, its values, and its attitudes towards the new government. And he was blunt about what has just happened. “It's the heaviest defeat for our political family under the Fifth Republic. Let's make sure this evening that we draw the lessons from this failure.”
Estrosi angered party members during the presidential election campaign, when he appeared to court Emmanuel Macron during the latter's campaign visit to Nice.
9.50pm: Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, 46, a former member of the conservative LR party appointed by Emmanuel Macron last month, gave a televised address to the nation tonight. “You have given a clear majority to the president and to the government,” he said. “The French people preferred hope in place of anger.” But he recognised that the LREM victory was tempered by the record low turnout. “Abstention is never good news for democracy,” he said.
“Tonight opens the moment of action,” he continued, adding what appeared to be a suggestion for cross-party involvement: “We must be ready to welcome all [expressions of] goodwill.”
"One year ago, no-one would have imagined such a political renewal," he added.
9.35pm: The first signs of possible post-election turmoil on the far-right after its poor showing came from Gilbert Collard, the secretary general of Rassemblement Bleu Marine, a movement allied to the Front National, who was himself re-elected as an MP in the Gard département (equivalent to a county) in the South of France. He said that they needed to “reflect on the movement's functioning” and said he was “asking himself questions” after recent developments, in particular the recent decision of Marine Le Pen's niece Marion Maréchal-Le Pen to quit politics. However, Collard, 69, could not resist a swipe at the victorious LREM party and the new president, saying the poor turnout and the likely smaller than forecast majority meant that the system had “taken its first kick up the backside”.
9.30pm: As expected, the far-right Front National's vice-president Florian Philippot, the party's most high-profile figure after Marine Le Pen, failed in his bid to become an MP. He picked up just over 43% of the vote in a constituency in Moselle in north-east France. “We were swept away by the Macron wave, which is quite a small wave given the abstention rate,” he said.
9.27pm: Marisol Touraine, former French health minister under François Hollande, has lost her seat in the Indre-et-Loire département in west-central France. Touraine, a veteran socialist, was spared the opposition of an LREM candidate after she declared her support for Macron’s programme. The local Socialist Party federation withdrew its support for her as a result and tonight she was soundly beaten by the centre-right UDI party candidate Sophie Auconie, allied to the conservative LR.
9.20pm: One of the biggest losers of the evening has been the far-right Front National, who are forecast to pick up just a handful of seats, perhaps no more than seven. Its under-pressure president Marine Le Pen tried to put a brave face on what will be seen as a huge setback by announcing that she had been elected with 58% of the vote in her constituency in northern France, and that a total of six FN candidates had “already” been elected. “I'm looking forward to other results that are due to come in,” she declared.
Le Pen said the low turnout was a sign that the French people were “weary” and warned of the “fragility of the Parliament that's been elected this evening” because of the “anti-democratic” nature of the election. She said: “It's scandalous that a movement such as ours cannot get a [parliamentary] group at the National Assembly. We are the only resistance to the dilution of France.”
A parliamentary group requires a minimum of 15 MPs who are either from one party or several allied parties.
9.15pm: Though he sent his “congratulations” the LR party campaign leader François Baroin also warned the new government that it had to listen to the millions of French people who had opted not to vote in recent elections. “We can't ignore the 16 million French people who refused to choose between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen on the evening of the second round [of the presidential vote]. After these legislative elections it's down to the president, alongside parliament, to lead our country while taking account of all these messages – as for us, we won't forget any of them.”
9.10pm: Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the radical-left La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party, tonight won the Marseille constituency he was fighting against an LREM candidate. His party, fighting its first general election under the name, has an estimated 19 seats in the new parliament. “A tiny minority has all the powers,” he said tonight, referring to the representation of the LREM with regard to the total electorate. “I see in this abstention an available energy, if we know how to call it up for combat. This force can deploy itself and move from abstention to the attack.”
“This bloated [parliamentary] majority does not, to our eyes, have a majority to carry out the social coup d’état that was in preparation […] It doesn’t have a legitimacy to transform public liberties by placing into common law the extraordinary powers of the state of emergency,” said Mélenchon, 65, referring to Emmanuel Macron’s plan to enshrine some of the current state of emergency powers, introduced under François Hollande’s presidency after the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, into the constitution. “It is the most total resistance that is legitimate in these circumstances,” added Mélenchon.
9pm: Christophe Castaner, spokesman for the Macron government, a former socialist MP who jumped ship for Macron’s LREM party, speaking on France 2 television tonight, said “the French people have given [us] a clear majority, but didn’t want to give us a blank cheque”.
“It is a responsibility. The real victory will be in five years, when things have really changed. There is also the confirmation of the May 7th vote [when Macron won the presidential election]. Since last week, it was said that the election was played out over two rounds, and perhaps there was too much made to believe that everything was already played out. Perhaps our own electorate also didn’t turn out, believing that the thing was done. But there is a strong majority, a will that things change.”
8.50pm: Within minutes of the first indications of the results being published, the recriminations had already begun on the Right. The secretary general of the conservative Les Républicains (LR) party, Bernard Accoyer, pointed the finger at conservatives who had thrown in their lot with the centrist president Emmanuel Macron, a clear reference to the current prime minister Édouard Philippe and the economy minister Bruno Le Maire, both formerly senior figures in the LR. “If some hadn't succumbed to appeals from the government we'd have certainly had dozens of extra MPs,” he told Le Monde.
8.45pm: Back to (outgoing) Socialist Party leader Jean-Christophe Cambadélis. “The Right faces a veritable defeat,” he said. The populists on all sides have been sent to the margins. The Left must change everything, inside and out, its ideas like its organization. It must begin a new cycle. It’s about rethinking the roots of progressism. Its two pillars, the welfare state and the extension of freedoms, are placed in question.”
8.40pm: “The intense campaign that we have led has allowed for the constitution of of a [parliamentary] group sufficiently big to defend our values [...] to make our differences heard, notably on tax issues,” added Baroin.
8.38pm: Conservative Les Républicains (LR) party campaign leader François Baroin said tonight, “The French people had wanted to give a net majority for the president, it’s done and I abide by the result of the urns.”
“Tonight comes to an end an electoral cycle that is certainly far too long for many French people.”
8.35pm: Cambadélis announced that he was stepping down from the leadership of the Socialist Party.
8.28pm: Socialist Party leader Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, who last Sunday lost the Paris seat he had held for 20 years, tonight recognised a debacle for his party, even though it fared better than predicted. “Tonight, despite a record abstention rate, the triumph for Emmanuel Macron is indisputable, [and] the rout of the Socialist Party unquestionable,” he said. “The voters had wanted to give the new president his chance, they gave no chance for his opponents. Tonight the president has all the powers.”
“This imposing majority does not correspond with the social and political reality of our country,” he added.
8.20pm: If the estimations prove accurate, and the Ipsos estimations last weekend were very close to the final official results, Emmanuel Macron’s party has a comfortable parliamentary majority with 311 seats and 44 seats for its centre-right ally the MoDem party (it needed 289 seats for an absolute majority). But it is far less than was predicted (up to 450 seats) after the first-round scores, and the swing from last Sunday appears to have above all benefited the conservative Les Républicains party and its allies, who are credited with 125 seats, which remains a significant defeat for a party which at the beginning of the year appeared on course to win the presidency and a parliamentary majority after five years of socialist government.
The Socialist Party has suffered a trouncing, but also less than predicted, with 34 seats, plus 15 seats for its traditional centre-left allies (a total of 49 seats). The radical-left France Insoumise party (France Unbowed) has failed to take leadership of the Left, credited with a total of 19 seats, plus 11 for its ally, the Communist Party (a total of 30 seats).
With an estimation that it has won eight seats, the far-right Front National has won more than predicted after last Sunday (between one and five seats), although far less than the around 100 seats it claimed it was on course to win just two months ago.
8.05pm: First estimations of the results have now been published, after the close of all polling stations.
They give President Emmanuel Macron’s party, LREM, and its centre-right MoDem party ally a total of 355 seats, which is almost 100 less than predicted after the first-round result.
The conservative Les Républicians party and its centre-right allies are given second position with 125 seats (about 40 more than predicted).
The Socialist Party and its allies, which had the majority in the outgoing parliament, is estimated to have 49 seats, which is more than predicted.
The radical-left France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party, and its Communist Party ally, are together credited with 30 seats.
The far-right Front National is predicted to win eight seats.
7.30pm: According to an estimation by Ipsos/Sopra Steria for France Télévisions and Radio France, and based on official interior ministry figures released at 5pm, turnout is expected to be 43.4%. That is a record low for a second round of legislative elections since the creation of the Fifth Republic in 1958, and mirrors the historic low turnout recorded in the first round last Sunday (48.7%). A more precise estimation will be available after the last polling stations close, in major towns and cities, at 8pm (elsewhere voting stopped at 6pm).
-------------------------
A brief guide to the election
How it works:
The legislative elections are held over two rounds, one week apart, on June 11th and 18th, to choose the 577 members of parliament’s lower house, the National Assembly, who have a five-year mandate, in parallel to that of the president. These represent 566 constituencies in mainland France and its overseas territories, and also 11 virtual constituencies for French nationals living abroad (these are divided up into large international regions).
The minimum number of seats a party must win for an absolute majority is 289.
Those candidates who fail to score more than 50% of votes cast in the first round, which are the vast majority, but who garner the equivalent of 12.5% or more of registered voters, are eligible to move on to the second, knockout round when the candidate with the most votes wins.
The total French electorate is just less than 47 million. Polling stations close at 6pm in rural areas and small towns, while those in major towns and cities close at 8pm, when the first exit poll results, which last weekend proved to be accurate, will be published.
The National Assembly is the key lawmaking chamber. Members of the less powerful upper house, the Senate, are chosen in separate elections, in which only local elected officials take part in the vote.
What’s at stake:
In last Sunday’s first-round vote, only four candidates won outright (i.e. garnered more than 50% of votes cast in their constituency), so this Sunday is the decisive election round.
Following the election of maverick centrist and political newcomer Emmanuel Macron as president in May, barely a year after announcing the launch of his new political movement En Marche !, the legislative elections will decide if he has a working majority with which to push through sweeping “structural” reforms he promised during his campaign, beginning with a loosening up of French labour laws.
After his election, his party was renamed La République En Marche (LREM) to fight the legislatives. It emerged from the first round on June 11th in the lead in the vast majority of constituencies, most often comfortably in front of rivals from the traditional parties, and estimations put it on course to win not only a parliamentary majority, but a landslide victory of up to 450 seats out of parliament’s 577.
The LREM is fighting the elections in an alliance with the relatively small centre-right MoDem party. If the LREM landslide is confirmed, it would allow Macron to untie himself from the MoDem, currently at the centre of an investigation into its alleged misuse of European Parliament funds and which has become an embarrassment ahead of an announced reform to introduce greater probity in political life.
The elections announce a remarkable sea change in French politics, with the traditional parties fighting for survival against a movement that little more than a year ago did not exist. So the stakes before the first round have changed considerably in this second round; rather than a test for Macron’s fledgling party, it has now become a question of the extent of the debacle that faces the traditional parties. Based on the first-round results, the Socialist Party is heading for historic, major losses nationwide, and its resulting implosion is widely forecast. The conservative Les Républicains (the former UMP) party is also bracing itself for huge losses, as is also its centre-right UDI allies, but on a more limited scale to the socialists. The traditional Right, like the Left, is also struggling to contain a significant number among its representatives who have expressed their wish to work in a sort of unofficial alliance with Macron’s party.
Meanwhile, the far-right Front National party, which until the presidential elections was boasting of gaining up to 100 seats, appears on course for as little as between one or five seats. Divided and discredited by hesitating policy U-turns, it has, as illustrated in the first round, lost its momentum and its ability to mobilise its electorate.
Which, in terms of the major parties, leaves the radical-left La France Insoumise (France unbowed) movement. It failed in the first round to reflect the presidential election score of its leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, when his almost 20% share of votes cast was reduced almost by half. But it nevertheless came comfortably ahead of the socialists, and the second-round test is whether it can confirm its new-found rank as the major party of the Left.
The future of members of the interim government that was appointed by Macron after his election, led by Prime Minister Edouard Philippe who jumped ship from the LR party, will also be decided by today’s poll. While it is unlikely to change significantly, any of the ministers, all of whom are standing as candidates, who lose their bids will be forced to step down.
Finally, the first round saw a record low turnout, the lowest since the creation of the constitution of the Fifth Republic in 1958. If that is repeated, or falls further, in the second round, it will of course temper the LREM victory but will also no doubt highlight the debacle of the traditional parties.