PARIS - Socialist President Francois Hollande looked set to consolidate his grip on power with a left-wing majority in parliament after a first-round vote on Sunday, and may be able to govern without relying on hard leftists hostile to closer European integration.Initial projections by polling agencies based on a partial vote count suggested his core Socialist bloc could win 283 to 329 seats in the 577-member National Assembly in next SundayÂ’s runoff, shifting the lower house to the left for the first time in a decade.
With Greens allies, the left would have 295 to 347 seats, the CSA polling institute forecast, well ahead of the mainstream conservatives with 210 to 263 seats, and more than the outright majority of 289 needed to give Hollande a free hand.
| Give Hollande every opportunity to do what Champ did when he had a majority in the Congress: screw it up so royally and openly that everyone can see it. Then the socialists won't have any excuses in the next election. |
The vote was another symbolic advance for the left after it took control of the Senate in 2011 and won the presidency in May for the first time since 1988. A low turnout of less than 60 percent, which analysts say plays against the left, could still curb what might have been a bigger triumph for Hollande as he seeks to steer France through the euro zoneÂ’s debt crisis.