Emmanuel Macron's En Marche! close to landslide victory in French parliamentary elections

Newly-elected centrist President Emmanuel Macron is on course for a landslide victory in the French parliamentary election after the first round of voting.

With 94 per cent of votes counted, the Interior Ministry said Mr Macron's new En Marche! movement won 28 per cent of the votes.

The exit poll showed En Marche! and its centrist allies on course to win between 415 and 445 seats – significantly more than the 289 needed to secure a majority. The party is expected to gain the backing of around 33 per cent of voters.

But the victory for Mr Macron is slightly tainted by the historically low turnout of below 50 per cent, with rival parties warning that French democracy is "ill".

Undeterred by the low turnout, Mr Macron's Prime Minister Edouard Philippe declared "France is back".

The poll shows the mainstream French right struggling to make an impact in the wake of its poor performance in the presidential election. They look set to end up with just 80 to 100 seats, if the exit poll proves accurate.

The Republicans were rocked by the failure of their presidential candidate, Francois Fillon, to progress to the second round of voting following relentless allegations of corruption.

Leader François Baroin called on supporters to turn out en masse next Sunday, saying: “Our country expects balanced powers, not concentrated in a single party.”

The far-right struggled to make an impact, in one of the more surprising results of the exit poll, with the Front Nationale winning just 13 per cent of votes compared to the 23 per cent it took in the first round of the presidential elections.

This drop could see Marine Le Pen's party win a small handful of seats – between one and four – well short of the 15 seats needed to form a parliamentary group.

Ms Le Pen appeared to remain optimistic when she said that in spite of "catastrophic" abstention levels, her party might still end up winning "several" constituencies.

She finished first in the northern Hénin-Beaumont district with 45 per of the vote, and will face a battle against an En Marche candidate in round two in her third attempt to win a seat.

The far-left La France Insoumise party is set to finish with around 12 per cent of the vote, which would see it take between 10 to 20 seats.

While there are several factors which could impact on the second round next Sunday, the expected outcome will give Mr Macron the ability to implement the economic and social reforms he promised during the presidential campaign, including relaxing employment laws, cutting corporation tax and investing billions of euros in job training and renewable energy.

Success would mark a stunning rise to prominence for the party, founded just 14 months ago.

It has capitalised on disarray in the two main parties, with the Socialist Party suffering from the unpopularity of Francois Hollande’s five-year presidency and high rates of unemployment.

It is predicted to retain just 20 to 30 of the 384 seats it currently holds.

Jean-Christophe Cambadelis, the party’s secretary general, called it an “unprecedented setback for the Left and notably for the Socialist Party”.

He added: “It is neither healthy nor desirable for a president who gathered only 24 percent of the vote in the first round of the presidentials and who was elected in the second round only by the rejection of the extreme Right should benefit from a monopoly of national representation.”

Parliamentary candidates must secure at least 12.5 per cent of the vote in order to progress to the second round of voting, which will take place on 18 June.

Should a candidate receive a majority of votes and the backing of at least 25 per cent of voters, they are elected in the first round without the need for a second vote.

Speaking on Friday, Mr Philippe, who was previously part of the Republican Party, urged voters to back Mr Macron.

He said: "The question that the French people must answer on Sunday is, do they want to give the President and the government he named a sufficient majority to begin the work of turning around the country.”

Others, however, have argued that a parliamentary majority would hand Mr Macron and his party too much power.

“We shouldn't have a monopolistic party," said former French prime minister Bernard Cazeneuve, a Socialist.

The political infancy of En Marche! means many of its parliamentary candidates are newcomers to politics. They include a retired bullfighter, a fighter pilot and a prize-winning mathematician. Half are women.

Candidates were chosen from a pool of 19,000 people who applied. 1,700 were interviewed before the final candidates were selected.

The run-off next Sunday will decide the exact number of seats for each party.