Paris a 'city of resistance' against far right - mayor

The mayor of Paris has sought to reassure visitors that the festive mood at the Olympics will not be dampened by Marine Le Pen's electoral successes in France's snap parliamentary elections, with less than a month to go before the city hosts the Games.

- Ashifa Kassam

"The party will not be spoilt," the Socialist mayor, Anne Hidalgo, told the broadcaster France 2. "I say to visitors from the world over-come over! Because Paris stands up for freedom and is a city of resistance against the extreme right."

Le Pen's far-right, anti-immigrant National Rally (RN) and its allies came first with 33% in Sunday's first round vote. Before the second, decisive round on 7 July, at least 200 candidates have withdrawn in an effort to build a united front capable of stopping Jordan Bardella, Le Pen's 28-year-old protege with no governing experience, becoming prime minister.

Le Pen yesterday said her party would seek to form a government even if it fell short of an absolute majority, a reversal of the party's previous stance. It could cobble support from a minimum of "for example, 270 deputies" and then find support from 19 more MPs in order to make Bardella prime minister, she said.

"If we then have a majority, then yes, of course, we'll go and do what the voters elected us to do," she told broadcaster France Inter.

The party's worst results, however, were in Paris, where all the party's candidates were eliminated in the first round. Instead Parisians cast their votes for the leftwing New Popular Front alliance (NFP), which nationally earned 28% of the vote, and Emmanuel Macron's broad alliance of centrists, who gained 22% of the vote across the country.