PARIS, June 11 (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron’s party and its allies have won the biggest share of the vote in the first round of legislative elections on Sunday, according to official figures published by the Interior Ministry and based on a partial count of votes. The figures did not include votes from France’s biggest cities and such early counts tend to be less precise than pollsters’ estimates, which put Macron’s party close to 33 percent. The emergence of LREM little as a start-up movement just over a year ago has triggered a major shift in the political landscape in France. The ministry said the abstention rate on Sunday was a high 51.4 percent. The results are another blow to the country’s mainstream Socialist and conservative parties already reeling from Macron’s election in May, which blew apart the left-right divide that has shaped French politics for the past century.

Source: Huffington Post June 11, 2017 15:13 UTC