For a lot of, France seems like a really totally different place on Monday.

The outcomes from the first round of legislative elections, held on Sunday, revealed a rustic deeply fractured, with a surging far right successful a report variety of votes and the close to collapse of President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist celebration.

“The far proper at energy’s door,” the quilt of Le Parisien, a each day newspaper, pronounced the morning after the primary half of the snap election referred to as by Mr. Macron.

“Twelve million of our fellow residents have voted for a far proper celebration that’s clearly racist and anti-Republican,” the left-leaning Libération newspaper declared in an editorial, referring to Marine Le Pen’s Nationwide Rally celebration. “The pinnacle of the state threw France below the bus, the bus continued with out slowing down, and now it’s parked in entrance of the gates of Matignon” — the prime minister’s workplace.

If the Nationwide Rally takes an absolute majority within the runoff on Sunday, Mr. Macron might be pressured to nominate a major minister from its ranks, who will in flip type a cupboard.

There was a way of whiplash and disbelief on the political nosedive of Mr. Macron’s celebration, which with its allies has had essentially the most seats, however not an absolute majority, within the Nationwide Meeting. That centrist coalition completed a distant third within the first spherical of the two-round electoral race. Solely two of his candidates — and never certainly one of his ministers who had been working for a seat — acquired sufficient votes to be re-elected with no runoff for his or her positions, in contrast with 37 members of the far-right Nationwide Rally, and 32 of the left-wing coalition of events referred to as the New In style Entrance, which got here in second.

The outcomes of the primary spherical of voting don’t sometimes present a dependable projection of the variety of parliamentary seats every celebration will safe. However the Nationwide Rally now seems to be very more likely to be the most important pressure within the highly effective Nationwide Meeting. The query is whether or not it should get sufficient seats to command an absolute majority.

If that doesn’t occur, the Nationwide Meeting will probably be ungovernable, with Mr. Macron’s centrist celebration and its allies squeezed between the correct and the left and with vastly diminished energy.

“Finish of an period,” declared the entrance web page of Les Echos, the principle enterprise each day.

“When historians look again on the dissolution, they are going to have just one phrase: catastrophe!” said an editorial within the conservative newspaper Le Figaro.

“Emmanuel Macron had every little thing, or nearly every little thing,” it continued. “He misplaced every little thing.”

On the bottom, the response to the vote mirrored the nation’s divisions. Within the north, thought-about a stronghold of the far-right Nationwide Rally, there was jubilation.

“I’m going to celebration all evening lengthy,” Manuel Queco, 42, a contractor, mentioned in an area corridor within the city of Hénin-Beaumont, the place Ms. Le Pen was receiving one spherical of congratulations after one other on Sunday night, after she was elected outright in her personal race. As the gang of Nationwide Rally supporters burst right into a spherical of the nationwide anthem, Mr. Queco raised his glass of Champagne. “I’ve been ready for them to win since I used to be 18 years outdated.”

In Paris, the outcomes of the primary spherical revealed an electoral map that had blocked out the Nationwide Rally nearly fully, however was divided between the New In style Entrance and the president’s celebration. But, the predominant feeling within the Place de la République, the place 1000’s of left-wing supporters gathered Sunday evening, was certainly one of sorrow and commiseration.

“I by no means thought I might see this in my life — the far proper main the nation,” mentioned Camille Hemard, 50, a professor of Latin, Greek and French at a sophisticated preparatory faculty. She had introduced alongside her 16-year-old daughter to hunt solace within the crowd that danced and chanted, “Everybody hates the fascists.”

She added, “I had hoped my youngsters wouldn’t know this.”

From the radio, tv units and information web sites, pollsters reminded people who not every little thing was determined. Solely 76 of the nation’s 577 legislative seats had been received outright. A battle would ensue for the remaining 501 this week, till the definitive vote on Sunday. The query many had been asking was what number of candidates would drop out of three-way races in a strategic transfer to dam the far proper from successful.

Official outcomes published by the Interior Ministry confirmed that the Nationwide Rally and its allies received about 33 % of the vote. Mr. Macron’s centrist Renaissance celebration and its allies took about 20 %, and the New In style Entrance received about 28 % of the vote.

Ségolène Le Stradic contributed reporting from Hénin-Beaumont, France.