French left-wing alliance wins elections, ministry results say

The new left-wing alliance New Popular Front (NFP) in France has won the snap parliamentary elections based on the provisional official results issued by the Interior Ministry on Monday, a day after the second round of voting.

President Emmanuel Macron's centrist Ensemble (Together) coalition came in second place. Marine Le Pen's far-right nationalist National Rally (RN), initially seen as the favourite after the first round of voting, came third, the ministry said, without allocating all elected lawmakers to one of the main camps.

The lawmakers have until July 18 to form their parliamentary groups.

For now, French media are showing a distribution of seats in the National Assembly that differs by a few seats in some cases.

A count by Le Monde newspaper said the NFP has 182 seats, Macron's camp 168 seats, the RN and its allies 143 seats and the moderate part of the Republicans, who have decided not to co-operate with the RN, 45 seats.

It is not uncommon in France for the major blocs to try to win over representatives of splinter parties that are not firmly aligned with one of the camps after the election results.

This often has a minor impact on the exact distribution of seats in the respective camps.

As neither the left-wing alliance nor the presidential camp has an absolute majority following Sunday's election results, many efforts in the upcoming government formation will be focussed on sounding out possible alliances and winning over individual members of parliament (MPs) from other groups to their own camp.

For now, though, neither camp has any prospect of achieving an absolute majority in this way.