Emmanuel Macron's Republic on the Move! party set for landslide win in next round of French election

Landslide victory: Emmanuel Macron's party look set for victory
AFP/Getty Images
Fiona Simpson12 June 2017

President Emmanuel Macron’s new party is set for a landslide victory in the latest round of the French election, allowing him to govern the country almost unopposed for the next five years.

The 39-year-old leader’s Republic on the Move! has fielded many candidates with no political experience against members from the Republican and socialist movements in its first run at a ballot.

Mr Macron’s success, however, was blighted by low turn-out as less than 50 per cent of the 47.5 million electors took to the polls.

Mr Macron wants, within weeks, to start reforming French labour laws to make hiring and firing easier, and plans to legislate a greater degree of honesty into a parliament previously hit by high-profile scandals.

Wining streak: President Emmanuel Macron
REUTERS

With 94 per cent of votes counted, the president’s camp was comfortably leading with more than 32 per cent - putting it well ahead of all opponents going into the decisive second round of voting next Sunday for the 577 seats in the lower-house National Assembly.

Mr Macron's prime minister, Edouard Philippe, confidently declared on Sunday night that the second round vote would give the assembly a "new face."

"France is back," he said.

Pollsters said that Mr Macron's camp could end up with as many as 450 seats - and that the opposition in parliament would be fragmented as well as small.

French leader: Emmanuel Macron waves before addressing his supporters
AP

The Socialist Party that held power in the last legislature looked likely so see their 314 seats reduced to as few as 20, according to pollsters' projections.

Socialist Party leader Jean-Christophe Cambadelis warned that Mr Macron's party could end up "almost without any real opposition".

"We would have a National Assembly with no real power of control and without democratic debate to speak of," he said.

On the right, the conservative Republicans were projected to end up with no more than 110 seats, and possibly as few as 70 – a dramatic drop from 215 in the outgoing parliament.

The National Front of far-right leader Marine Le Pen looked unlikely to convert her strong showing in the presidential election into anything more than a small handful of legislative seats, dashing her hopes to create a strong opposition following her defeat on May 8.

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