(June 12): President Emmanuel Macron expanded his control of French politics as voters put his party on track to a sweeping majority in the National Assembly in the first round of legislative elections.

Macron’s year-old party, Republic on the Move, won about 31.5% of the vote, almost 10 percentage points ahead of the Republicans, according to the Interior Ministry, with 89 % of the vote counted. The result would give Macron’s backers between 415 and 455 seats out of 577 in the lower house of parliament, according to projections by Ipsos.

The results – which need to be confirmed in the second round of voting next Sunday  – would give Macron the biggest majority in the Assembly since 1993. That offers the 39-year-old president the power to push through his recipe for fixing France over the next five years and face the consequences if he fails.

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