France Election: Establishment’s Macron Seizes Smaller Legislative Majority Than Expected

AP — Partial official results from France’s second-round parliamentary elections show President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party with a clear lead over the country’s traditional right-wing and leftist parties.

With 57 percent of votes counted, the Interior Ministry said Sunday that Macron’s Republic on the Move! party had won 41 percent of the vote, followed by the conservative Republicans with 23 percent. The ministry said the National Front was in third place with nearly 10 percent followed by the Socialists with 6.2 percent.

Pollsters project that Macron’s party and its allies won a clear majority in the National Assembly, the powerful lower house.

Many candidates in his party joined only after Macron won the presidency in May.

BREAKING #Macron's En Marche movement gets 355 seats in National Assembly according to first polls as voting closes. MUCH less than expected

— Stuart Norval (@StuartNorval) June 18, 2017

BREAKING National Front expected to get 8 seats (far more than expected).

— Stuart Norval (@StuartNorval) June 18, 2017

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