After the first round of the French parliamentary elections, a narrow majority for President Emmanuel Macron in the National Assembly is emerging.

Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne called on Monday to fight for every vote.

Next Sunday, the majority will be decided in the second round of voting.

The Prime Minister called leftist spokesman Jean-Luc Mélenchon a "top liar".

"He lies and fluffs the results of his alliance to get the headlines," she said during a campaign visit to her constituency in Normandy.

Michael Wiegel

Political correspondent based in Paris.

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All 15 members of the government qualified for the second ballot in their constituencies.

But Europe Minister Clément Beaune, Minister for Civil Service Reform Stanislas Guérini, as well as Environment Minister Amélie de Montchalin are in a difficult position and lag behind the left-wing candidates.

In the event of their defeat, President Macron has announced that they will have to step down from government responsibility.

Macron's camp loses around seven percent

A heated debate has broken out over the official end result.

The spokesman for the left-wing alliance NUPES, Mélenchon, accused Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin of having "manipulated" the numbers.

A number of candidates, especially overseas, were not assigned to the left-wing alliance in order to “artificially” create a head start for the presidential camp.

"They cheated," said Green MEP David Cormand.

The government had previously tried not to correctly identify the left-wing alliance of leftists, greens, socialists and communists.

He was alluding to a legal dispute before the State Council, which was decided in favor of the left-wing alliance.

According to the official final result, the presidential camp "Ensemble" ("Together") with a voting share of 25.75 percent is just ahead of the left-wing alliance NUPES with 25,

66 percent nationwide.

In absolute terms, Macron's camp had a lead of 21,359 votes.

Compared to the first ballot in 2017, this means losses for Macron's camp of almost seven percent.

Five years ago, the En Marche movement (without allies) won 350 of the 577 seats in the second ballot, with 28.2 percent of the votes in the first ballot.

Opinion research institutes rule out a similar success this time.

According to the latest estimates, the presidential camp can count on 255 to 295 deputies.

The absolute majority is 289 seats.

Most recently, the socialist President François Mitterrand had only achieved a relative majority in the 1988 parliamentary elections.

At that time, the minority government resulted in an upgrading of the parliament.

Rassemblent National at just under 19 percent

There are signs of a clear change in the balance of power in the National Assembly.

The far-right Rassemblement National (RN) came in third with 18.6 percent of the vote.

This corresponds to an increase of almost five percent compared to 2017. Marine Le Pen's party has good prospects of achieving group strength.

In 2017 she missed this goal.

According to estimates by polling institutes, RN could claim up to 40 seats in parliament.

The RN candidates did particularly well in their northern stronghold.

Marine Le Pen received almost 54 percent of the votes in her constituency, but has to face a runoff election due to the low turnout.

The right-wing party Les Républicains (LR) got 10.4 percent, together with its allies a good 13 percent.

The far-right Reconquete party received 4.2 percent of the vote, and none of its candidates qualified for the second ballot.

Former presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, who was defeated in his constituency in Cogolin on the Côte d'Azur, lamented a "shift to the left" in France.

Reconquête remains the only right-wing party.

Due to the low turnout of 47.5 percent, a new negative record, there are duels between the two top candidates in most constituencies.

In 278 constituencies, the decision is made between the candidates of the left alliance and the government camp.

Macron supporters are fighting Le Pen's candidate in 110 constituencies. Left-wing candidates and RNs face off in 62 constituencies.

Election recommendations were debated on Monday.

On election night, government spokeswoman Olivia Grégoire initially refused to call for the left-wing alliance to be elected in order to rob Le Pen's candidate of victory.

This led to heavy criticism.

The announcement was corrected on Monday.

The government camp is against Le Pen's candidate.

"Not one vote for the Front National," said the Prime Minister.

However, if there are left-wing candidates who want to leave the EU and no longer want to support Ukraine, there will be no election recommendation for them, said Borne.

There could also be no support for left-wing candidates who insulted the police.

During the election campaign, Mélenchon had criticized the rabid methods of the police and said: "The police kill."