French parliamentary candidates out glad-handing on the campaign trail

the morning after. Those who did gave Mr Macron’s En Marche party over 28 per cent of the vote – more than 12 points ahead of the closest rival, the mainstream conservatives.

If the sweep holds as expected, representatives of Mr Macron’s party, many of them new to politics, could take more than 400 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, the lower house - unprecedented in the Fifth Republic, like the 48.7 per cent participation rate.

Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Front fell flat with 13 per cent of the vote. Ms Le Pen, who had Europe on edge until she lost the May 7 presidential race, was trying to save herself and her party in the legislative contests. She moved to the second round in her northern bastion of Henin-Beaumont. But some ranking party members were eliminated outright, notably campaign director Nicolas Bay, the party’s secretary-general.

“Lots of voters thought that (the election result) was played out in advance,” Mr Bay said on Monday on CNews TV, reflecting a sense expressed by others that the huge presidential win by Mr Macron demotivated many potential voters. Mr Macron, an upstart centrist, formed his En Marche movement less than 14 months ago then turned it into a political party, promising to return politics to the people.

Now, Mr Macron’s rivals fear the elections will eliminate any effective opposition to counter an all-powerful president. He wants, within weeks, to start reforming French labour laws to make hiring and firing easier, and legislate a code of ethics in politics to end the scandals that over decades have eroded voter trust in the political class.

The Socialist Party of the deeply unpopular former president Francois Hollande was shredded in the first round, with its leader, Jean-Christophe Cambadelis eliminated along with Benoit Hamon, the party’s presidential candidate. The party took less than 7.5 per cent of the vote. Francois Fezeau, 29, of Paris, said the results “fill me with enthusiasm”.