Left-wing alliance leads in French elections: Exit polls

ANKARA

France's left-wing New Popular Front alliance leads in Sunday's snap parliamentary elections, seemingly halting the rise of far-right, polls said.

The NFP could win 180 to 215 seats in the parliament's lower chamber, the National Assembly, according to projections based on the surveying company Ifop’s estimations.

The centrist alliance, Together for the Republic, backed by President Emmanuel Macron ranked second with 150 to 180 seats, while Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN), which celebrated its victory in the first round, will get 120 to 150 seats.

The National Assembly has a total of 577 seats, and none of these three primary blocs are projected to get an absolute majority of 289 seats.

A 12-hour-long voting process ended at 8 p.m. local time (1800 GMT), in which over 43 million registered voters cast their ballots for the second round of elections.

Voters headed to the polling stations as of 8 a.m. (0600GMT) to elect the remaining 501 members of the National Assembly for a five-year term.

The first round was held on June 30 with over 49 million voters, and 76 candidates were elected. The second round was not held in those constituencies.

The Ifop estimated the turnout at 67.5% at 8 p.m.

In the first round, the RN got 29.26% of the vote by itself (37 seats), a rate that rises to over 33% when combined with its allies.

The NFP got 28.06% (32 seats), and the centrist Together for the Republic alliance backed by President Macron finished third with slightly over 20.04% (two seats).

A political party or alliance needs at least 289 seats to secure a majority in the National Assembly.

Macron dissolved the parliament and announced early elections after the RN swept more than 31% of the vote in the European Parliament elections on June 9, defeating his centrist bloc.