On the ground, the reaction to the vote reflected the country’s divisions. In the north, considered a stronghold of the far-right National Rally, there was jubilation.
“I’m going to party all night long,” Manuel Queco, 42, a contractor, said in a local hall in the town of Hénin-Beaumont, where Ms. Le Pen was receiving one round of congratulations after another on Sunday evening, after she was elected outright in her own race. As the crowd of National Rally supporters burst into a round of the national anthem, Mr. Queco raised his glass of Champagne. “I’ve been waiting for them to win since I was 18 years old.”
In Paris, the results of the first round revealed an electoral map that had blocked out the National Rally almost entirely, but was divided between the New Popular Front and the president’s party. Yet, the predominant feeling in the Place de la République, where thousands of left-wing supporters gathered Sunday night, was one of sorrow and commiseration.
“I never thought I would see this in my life — the far right leading the country,” said Camille Hemard, 50, a professor of Latin, Greek and French at an advanced preparatory college. She had brought along her 16-year-old daughter to seek solace in the crowd that danced and chanted, “Everyone hates the fascists.”
She added, “I had hoped my children would not know this.”
From the radio, television sets and news websites, pollsters reminded people that not everything was decided. Only 76 of the country’s 577 legislative seats were won outright. A battle would ensue for the remaining 501 this week, until the definitive vote on Sunday. The question many were asking was how many candidates would drop out of three-way races in a strategic move to block the far right from winning.
