Macron's party leads in French parliamentary elections

French president Emmanuel Macron waves during an inauguration ceremony at the Elysee Palace in Paris,France, on May 14, 2017. Centrist Emmanuel Macron was sworn in as the eighth president of the French Fifth Republic in a ceremony at the Elysee Palace here on Sunday. (Xinhua/Chen Yichen/File photo)

PARIS, June 12 -- French President Emmanuel Macron's party "The Republic On The Move" (LREM) and its ally MoDem took the lead in the first round of the parliamentary elections, according to final results released by the Interior Ministry.

Final results released early Monday showed Macron's LREM and MoDem won 32.32 percent of the vote, while the center-right party The Republicans and the far-right National Front of Marine Le Pen garnered 21.56 percent and 13.2 percent, respectively.

Under France's electoral rules, only candidates who win more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round win the seat outright. If there is no clear winner, all candidates who win more than 12.5 percent in the first round qualify for a runoff.

The runoff scheduled for next Sunday will determine the makeup of an assembly that Macron, at the start of a five-year term, needs to implement his campaign promises of boosting the economy and reducing the deficit.

Projections showed LREM and MoDem are likely to win between 400 and 445 seats in the 577-seat lower house of parliament, securing a landslide majority.

"With this result, there is a desire of the French to be coherent and want to give a majority to the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron," government spokesman Christophe Castaner told TF1 news channel.

In his first political test at home, Macron, who created LREM only one year ago, named 428 candidates, including 214 women, with half of them coming from civil society and having never held an elected post.

But Sunday's turnout hit a record low of 49 percent, mirroring the French people's growing disinterest in legislative elections.