France was on course for a hung parliament in today's election, with a leftist alliance unexpectedly taking the top spot ahead of the far right, exit polls suggested.
It was a major upset that was set to bar Marine Le Pen's National Rally from running the government.
The outcome, if confirmed, will leave parliament divided in three big groups with hugely different platforms and no tradition at all of working together.
The leftist alliance, which gathers the hard left, the Socialists and Greens, who have long been at odds with each other, was forecast to win between 172 and 215 seats out of 577, according to pollsters' projections based on early results from a sample of polling stations.
These projections are usually reliable.
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said he will hand his resignation to President Emmanuel Macron tomorrow morning, adding he will carry out his functions as long as required.
Cries of joy and tears of relief broke out at the leftist alliance's gathering in Paris when the estimates were announced. At the Greens' headquarters activists screamed in joy, embracing each other.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
By contrast there was stunned silence, clenched jaws and tears at the far right party headquarters, as young National Rally (RN) members checked their phones.
The result would in any case be humiliating for Mr Macron, whose centrist alliance, which he founded to underpin his first presidential run in 2017, was projected to be narrowly second and win 150-180 seats.
But it will also be a major disappointment for Marine Le Pen's nationalist, eurosceptic National Rally.
The RN, which had for weeks been projected to win the election, was seen getting 115 to 155 seats.
The first official results were expected later tonight, with the results from most, if not all, constituencies likely to be in by the end of the day or the early hours of Monday.
Read more:
Concern in Paris over surge of rural far right support
How would a far right French government regard Ukraine?
Voters have punished Mr Macron and his ruling alliance for a cost of living crisis and failing public services, as well as over immigration and security.
Ms Le Pen and her party tapped into those grievances, spreading their appeal way beyond their traditional strongholds along the Mediterranean coast and in the country's northern rust belt.
But the left alliance managed to edge them out of the first spot.
That was in part thanks to some limited cooperation by Mr Macron's centrist Together alliance and the left, designed to block the far right's ascent to power.
Ms Le Pen's rivals pulled more than 200 candidates out of three-way races in the second round in a bid to create a unified anti-RN vote.
"Our victory has been merely delayed," Ms Le Pen told TF1 TV. She added that Mr Macron is in an "untenable" situation.
The constitution mandates that there can be no new parliamentary election for another year, so an immediate repeat vote is not an option.
France 'pushed into hands of far left' - Bardella
RN leader Jordan Bardella said called the cooperation between anti-RN forces, known as the "republican front" a "disgraceful alliance".
He said that France had been "thrown into the hands of the far left" after his party failed to win the French parliamentary elections.
"After deliberately paralysing our institutions, Emmanuel Macron has pushed the country towards uncertainty and instability. As a result, he has deprived the French people of any response to their day-to-day difficulties for many months to come," said Mr Bardella.
He pledged his party will "amplify" its work in the opposition.
