Let's hear soime more of what French voters have been saying as they take to the streets to celebrate the left's shock victory or express their anger at the far right's defeat. The interviews were compiled by the French news agency AFP.
"I'm really happy, there's this crazy energy and I'm getting the chills," Marie Delille, a philosophy student, said at a gathering of the hard-left France Unbowed party in Stalingrad Square in Paris.
"It's a victory, but it's a relative victory... so we have to continue to fight. It's not over... But it's a relief, that's for sure. We weren't expecting it," said Hugo Chevalley, a history student.
In the crowd, there was a placard with the words: "No to the [far-right] RN, no to [President] Macron".
Elswhere in the city, Olivier Mondet, a 64-year-old nurse, expressed dismay at the turnout in favour of the left.
"They tell the French people any old thing and they swallow it all up. They're manipulating them," he said.
Cecilia Djennad, 32, said she was not about to give up even if some people have been demonising the far right for years.
History student Noah Ludon was also optimistic. "The RN is a high-speed train," he said. "Our voters are increasing."
Many people were bracing for a shock breakthrough for the far right but in the event it was a coalition of the left that surged ahead of both the right and President Emmanuel Macron's centrists.
The New Popular Front looks certain to have 182 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, with 168 for Macron's Ensemble alliance, 143 for the far-right National Rally and its allies, and 60 for the conservative Republicans. That spells a hung parliament.
All eyes will be on Macron who called this snap election and has still to issue his response to the new political realities.
Stay with us through the day as our reporters bring you news updates, analysis and colour at this crucial moment for French and European politics.
