France's parliament swings to the right, according to exit poll

PARIS -- The mainstream right won a huge victory in France's parliamentary election Sunday, forcing the Socialists to surrender control of the National Assembly and giving President Jacques Chirac more power than at any time in the last five years.

Conservative parties together won from 385 to 399 seats of the 577 seats in France's lawmaking body, exit polls showed. The left, including the Socialists, the Communists and the Green Party, won from 178 to 192 seats. The extreme-right National Front failed to win any seats.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy did not announce official seat counts but confirmed late Sunday that the left won approximately 180 seats, leaving the right with close to 400.

Chirac's Union for the Presidential Majority, a coalition of rightist parties, captured between 360 and 378 seats, and the Socialist Party won between 153 and 165 seats, the exit polls showed.

The Interior Ministry reported that with 96 percent of the vote counted, the right had 55 percent and the left had 45 percent.

Control of the National Assembly goes to the party or coalition with an absolute majority. All but 58 seats that were already decided in a first round of voting last week were being contested Sunday.

The result was a stinging defeat for the French left, which found itself abandoned by voters frustrated by rising crime and a government paralyzed by "cohabitation," a situation that exists when the president and prime minister hail from opposite parties.

The swing to the right was just the latest tilt in that direction in Europe. Conservative parties have also made gains in the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy and Portugal.

63 percent turnout

The head of Chirac's caretaker government, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, now looks set to run the government for the next five years. Speaking at his headquarters in Paris, he said "elections don't solve problems" and pledged to live up to voter demands.

The Interior Ministry said turnout was about 63 percent, which would be a record low for a legislative election under the Fifth Republic, established in 1958. It was the fourth time in less than two months that the French have gone to the polls, including two rounds of the presidential race.

Some big names who served in the Cabinet of former Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin lost their races, including Martine Aubry, the former labor minister who was instrumental in implementing the 35-hour workweek; Dominique Voynet, Jospin's environment minister; and Jean-Pierre Chevenement, the former interior minister.