While the far-right nationalists emerged on top in the first round of France's early parliamentary elections, centrists surrounding Emmanuel Macron and the leftist camp started on Monday to look for ways to stop a feared right-wing government from coming into power after the second round of voting this coming Sunday.
Based on provisional results from the Interior Ministry on Monday, the far-right nationalists are clearly leading the first round.
Marine Le Pen's party, National Rally (RN), and its allies gained 33.15% of the votes. The left-wing New Popular Front (NPF) alliance stands at 27.99%, while President Emmanuel Macron's centrist Ensemble (Together) alliance comes in at 20.04%. The conservative Republicans scored 10.23%.
According to figures from the Ipsos opinion research institute after the first round of the vote, National Rally received a particularly high number of votes from working-class voters and people without higher educational qualifications.
It also scored points with its traditional electorate but also expanded its voter base overall, gaining significantly more support from women and people under 35, Ipsos said.
Macron's camp primarily received votes from senior citizens and the financially better-off. According to Ipsos, Macron's alliance lost votes across the entire electorate and not just within specific groups.
The NPF was primarily chosen by younger people, people in larger cities and those with higher educational qualifications.
Overall, significantly more people voted on Sunday compared to the first round of parliamentary elections in previous decades, Ipsos said. Voter turnout stood at 66.71%. However, Ipsos said that no camp benefited more than others from this mobilization.
For Macron, the result is a bitter defeat. He had been seeking to secure a clear majority in the lower house for the centrist forces led by his Renaissance party.
How many seats the blocs will get in the National Assembly will only be decided in run-off elections next Sunday.
Before the second round of voting, parties can still forge local alliances that could influence the election outcome.
Candidates securing an absolute majority in their constituency in the first round are elected to the assembly, but in most constituencies, the victor will emerge only after the second round on Sunday.
According to forecasts, National Rally is likely to become the strongest force next Sunday. However, it could narrowly miss an absolute majority.
In the first round of voting, a total of 76 seats were directly allocated, including 37 to National Rally candidates and two more to far-right candidates. Le Pen is also set to enter the National Assembly directly without a run-off.
Due to the high voter turnout of 66.71% and the strong concentration on the three political blocs, an unusually large number of constituencies saw three candidates qualify for this second round of voting.
French media reported Monday that there would be 300 possible three-way races in the run-off.
In order not to take votes away from each other and thus help the RN to win locally, Macron's party and the left-wing alliance said that wherever they had finished in third place, they would withdraw in favour of candidates who could beat the National Rally.
The parties are hoping that in this way, the so-called firewall against the right - which has worked in the past - can once again halt Le Pen's advance.
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal gave a stark warning on Sunday evening: "The far right is at the gates of power ... Our objective is clear: to prevent the RN from getting elected in the second round."
Meanwhile, German politician and France expert Franziska Brantner said that the votes of young people could be the deciding factor in the second round of the parliamentary elections in France.
Many are disappointed with Macron, said Brantner, who is a lawmaker in the German lower house, or Bundestag, and also a deputy member of the Franco-German Parliamentary Assembly, in an interview on Monday with public radio Deutschlandfunk.
It now depends on whether young people who voted in favour of the left-wing alliance in the first round on Sunday are still prepared to support a candidate from Macron's alliance.
"Whether the mobilization works here is, I think, one of the big issues for next Sunday," she noted.
One challenge for the centre-left camp is that it has no figurehead, Brantner said.
"The parties have managed to form an alliance in such a short space of time, but have yet to agree on a single leader or a unified agenda. This is challenging at a time like this."
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk issued a stark warning against the far right.
"They like Putin, money and power without control. They rule or are reaching for power in the east and west of Europe," Tusk posted on X. He warned that right-wing populists would join forces in the European Parliament.
"In Poland, we reversed this disastrous course of events at the last minute. Let's not waste this," he added.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock asserted: "It cannot leave anyone cold when (...) in our closest partner and best friend a party that sees Europe as the problem and not the solution is far ahead," Baerbock said on Monday, referring to the strong showing by Marine Le Pen's party in French snap elections on Sunday.
She said that Germany and France - the two largest countries in the European Union - share a special responsibility for a Europe.
"In a democracy, elections are of course in the hands of the voters," Baerbock said, adding that as Germany's foreign minister she has a particular responsibility not to interfere in domestic politics of another country.