French president Francois Hollande's Socialists won an absolute parliamentary majority tonight, strengthening his hand as he presses Germany to support debt-laden euro zone states hit by austerity cuts and ailing banks.
The Socialist bloc secured between 296 and 321 seats in the parliamentary election runoff, according to reliable projections from a partial vote count, comfortably more than the 289 needed for a majority in the 577-seat National Assembly.
The left-wing triumph means Hollande, elected in May, won't need to rely on the environmentalist Greens, projected to win 20 seats, or the Communist-dominated Left Front, set for just 10 deputies, to pass laws.
The centre-left already controls the upper house of parliament, the Senate. Finance minister Pierre Moscovici said the result was a vote of confidence in Mr Hollande's government that would enable it to forge ahead with its economic and euro zone policies.
"With this majority, the government has the support and the confidence to push ahead with our plans," he said.
"Europe's future is at stake in the weeks ahead."
The far-right National Front achieved a breakthrough, winning its first parliamentary seats since the late-1980s in the wake of an anti-euro presidential election campaign by its charismatic leader Marine Le Pen, which struck a chord in a nation struggling with 10 percent unemployment.
Ms Le Pen, narrowly lost her race in a working-class northern town, but her 22-year-old niece, Marion Marechal Le Pen, granddaughter of the anti-immigrant party's founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, was elected in the southern town of Carpentras.
Two other National Front-backed candidates won seats nearby. The result gives the Socialists more power than they have ever held as Mr Hollande pushes for new tools to stimulate growth in the sickly euro zone and a European banking union that would protect depositors and states if banks fail.
Political turmoil in Greece, where parties that support the country's international bailout were heading for narrow win, is piling pressure on Europe's leaders to act to contain the bloc's debt crisis at a summit later this month.
Today’s victory may help Mr Hollande secure parliamentary backing for steps towards a euro zone fiscal union that Berlin is demanding as a condition for agreeing to his push for a growth pact and reforms to improve financial stability.
"It's a much bigger majority than expected," said political analyst Mariette Sineau at the CEVIPOF institute.
"It can only reinforce Hollande's position internationally rather than having a weak majority and being hostage to the Greens and Left Front."
The Socialist leader flies to Mexico tomorrow for a Group of 20 summit that will be dominated by the euro zone's woes as a rift with the bloc's paymaster Germany over how to resolve the crisis has sparked a rare public squabble.
Reuters