
President Emmanuel Macron faces a tough fight to win an absolute majority in parliament that would allow him to govern with a free hand after a strong showing by a new left-wing alliance in Sunday's first-round election.
Initial estimates by Elabe put the hard-left veteran Jean-Luc Melenchon's NUPES bloc neck-and-neck with Macron's Ensemble! alliance in the first round, with 26.20% and 25.8% respectively.