Financial markets have opened in Asia and the uncertainty over France's election results has stirred fresh uncertainy.

The euro slipped 0.2% to $1.08 and long-term French bond futures also fell in early Asia trading, Reuters news agency reports.

Investors are worried about the political gridlock - France will have a hung parliament with no party holding a majority.

The left-wing New Popular Front alliance that won the most seats could unwind President Emmanuel Macron's pro-market reforms, analysts fear.

"There's really going to be a vacuum when it comes to France's legislative ability," Simon Harvey, head of FX analysis at Monex Europe, told Reuters.

We will be watching market reaction in Europe as the bourses open.

Andrew Harding
Reporting from Saint-Denis

There were roars of delight, applause, and quite a few tears of relief here in a youth centre on the northern suburbs of Paris.

“I’m so relieved,” grinned university student Sarah Bennani, 19, moments after the results were broadcast.

“When I go home tonight, I won’t be afraid that someone grabs my hijab,” she continued, accusing the far-right National Rally – which could only manage third place in these elections - of fuelling racism, and racist attacks across France.

Around her, several young women hugged and danced, chanting “this [France] is our home”.

They were part of a larger, and diverse, crowd of young people, brought together by a range of local charities and a popular online website dedicated to reporting news from Paris’s sometimes troubled banlieues.

“Last week we were very sad. It was very hard to see hope. But now we’re very happy but the fight continues,” said Selim Krouchi, 21, studying communications at university.

“I wanted to cry. I was in the subway and my sister called me and said ‘we won!’ I just screamed in the metro,” laughed Mariam Toure, 22, a law student.

Paul Kirby
Europe digital editor, in Paris

Image source, EPA

It was a night that no one in France expected. This parliamentary election result was a shock.

The left-wing alliance hastily brought together by Jean-Luc Mélenchon was on top, Emmanuel Macron's centrists had staged an unexpected comeback, and the far-right National Rally (RN) fell from favourites to third.

But no one has seats enough to govern, and France now faces a hung parliament.

Left-leaning newspaper Libération summed up the whole night with the headline C'est Ouf - "crazy". But for many it has also brought relief - the RN has failed to take power.

Read Paul's full wrap of the night here.

Ido Vock
Live reporter

Even though the National Rally (RN) underperformed, its result was still the best in its history. It has only slightly fewer MPs than each of the other two main blocs in parliament.

And the rage felt by its voters towards establishment politics is unlikely to dissipate. Sylvie, a first-time RN voter, told me she was angry at high taxes being used to “pay for illegal immigrants”.

“We have tried all the other parties – why not them?” she asked.

Addressing that anger before the next presidential election, due in 2027, will be the paramount task of the next government.

Read the full story from Bordeaux here.

Serin Ha
BBC World Service

Image source, AFP

Eric Piolle, the Greens' mayor of Grenoble, said the fledgling left-wing New Popular Front alliance had momentum but he acknowledged that French politics would be "stuck" due to no overall control in parliament.

"The French people decided not to get an extreme-right government for now. So this is really a big win," he told the BBC World Service’s Newshour programme.

However he cautioned that France was "still in a mess" and while the NPF was new the Greens would need "to find a way to push for social and environmental measures very quickly”.

Asked if the alliance could hold together, he said: “There will be no majority for anybody. Because the president can’t dissolve parliament again for another year, we will be stuck like this.

"So we’ll have to find a way to push reforms that are agreed by, or not opposed by, the majority of the parliament. But we are really in a wild arena, we never faced that before.”

Paul Kirby
Europe digital editor

We're now getting a much clearer picture of how many actual seats the parties have won. Based on a calculation by French newspaper Le Monde, which uses government polling data, we’ve come up with this chart.

It shows the New Popular Front leftist alliance as the biggest group in the new National Assembly, followed by President Macron’s centrist Ensemble party and, in third place, the far-right National Rally and its allies.

Alexandra Fouché
Reporting from Nice

Image source, Getty Images

Let's look now at the man who tore France's conservative Republicans (LR) apart, when he struck an alliance with RN. Some his colleagues joined him but most refused.

Eric Ciotti, who hasn't given up his title of LR president, announced at a rally that he had been re-elected in his constituency in Nice, France’s fifth largest city.

The two other LR candidates supported by the RN also won either in the first or second round in Nice constituencies - thus bucking the national trend where RN has come third in nationwide results.

“We won in Nice,” Ciotti said. “It’s a victory that brings hope for the city.

“The candidates for the mayor of Nice, if they have not been eliminated in the first round, are relegated behind the extreme left. This is a message for [centrist Nice Mayor and long-time rival] Christian Estrosi.”

Large crowds continued to celebrate the results of the French election as night fell in the capital, but there have also been acts of violence.

Here are a few shots from Paris.

Image source, EPA

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, EPA

Image source, EPA

Image source, Getty Images

Paul Kirby
Europe digital editor

Image source, EPA

The far-right National Rally was widely expected to win France's snap election - but it looks like they have been beaten into third place.

The New Popular Front, a left-wing coalition, is on course for victory after a highly charged and abbreviated election called only four weeks ago by Macron.

It had all looked so different after the first round, with National Rally predicted victory in the run-off.

Instead, France is heading for a hung parliament with no party having anything like a majority.

France has navigated out of one uncharted course but faces another - the biggest group in the left-wing alliance is led by the radical and abrasive Jean-Luc Mélenchon whose France Unbowed is widely seen as far left by his rivals.

Read Paul's full report here.

Image source, AFP

François Hollande, the former French president, is back in the game having been elected to the National Assembly as part of the left-wing New Popular Front alliance.

He told supporters that his victory was part of a movement to keep the far right out of power.

"We have a result today that gives us both satisfaction and a responsibility," he said.

"The satisfaction lies in the fact that we have been able to keep the far right at bay and to ensure that, thanks to the withdrawals, we stopped it.

"And also, thanks to the extraordinary mobilisation of the French people, with a historic turnout, we were able to reduce the far right not to the sidelines, but to a very small minority in the National Assembly."

Hollande served as president for the Socialist Party from 2012 to 2017, where he was beaten by Emmanuel Macron.

Image source, Getty Images

Pedro Sánchez, Spain's leftist prime minister, has hailed France's "rejection of the far right" and welcomed the rise of "a social left that tackles the people's problems with serious and brave policies".

He said France and the UK, which elected a new Labour government on Thursday, had said "YES to progress and social progress and NO to going back on rights and freedoms".

"You don't make deals or govern with the far right," he said.

Graeme Baker
Live reporter

The international press has been following the French election closely. Here are a few reactions to the second round on Sunday:

In the US,The New York Times website on Sunday carried several headlines on the election, stating that France’s far right was "denied a majority by a left surge" but warned that without one party controlling parliament, "France’s way forward Is unclear".

In addition to its news report on the election, Italy's Corriere della Sera asks what President Emmanuel Macron can do after his "half-won gamble" of a snap election that now threatens political deadlock.

Remarking on the contrast between the first and second rounds of the election, Germany's Die Welt headlined its article: “First the desire for change was overwhelming – now the fear of change."

Under the headline "France put the brakes on the far right", Spain's El Pais noted that with the RN pushed into third place, the "cordon sanitaire", which for decades had contained the far right's bid for power, had remained intact.

In Russia, reporting focused on Macron, a key ally for Kyiv in the Ukraine war. "New dead end for Macron: left win elections in France," said the headline in Russia's pro-Kremlin Komsomolskaya Pravda.

The Times of India meanwhile described the exit polls as a "huge upset that was set to bar Marine Le Pen from running the government".

Focus was on what comes next at the The Sydney Morning Herald, which reported on French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal's offer to resign following a "shock" election result.

Jack Hunter
Reporting from Paris

A candidate for the far-right National Rally (RN) has told the BBC the party’s failure to win a majority in the parliamentary was because voters were “afraid” of the reaction from the “threatening” left-wing.

Ivanka Dimitrova, the defeated RN candidate for the second constituency of Seine-et-Marne, told Newshour on the BBC World Service she was “not surprised” by RN’s failure to win more seats.

Dimitrova said: “I think one of the reasons for this is because the far-left wing made a lot of threatening towards the population, with demonstrations burning things and being violent, so people were afraid of these reactions of the far-left wing.”

Dimitrova also claimed it was “better” for her party to have finished third rather than second in the elections.

She said French people would “take into account” the “failures” of any new parliamentary majority.

“This will convince people that we have to have the power. So the next time there will be elections people will think differently.”

Let our correspondents talk you through some key moments of a historic day for French politics.

Image source, get

There's been a major surprise in France's parliamentary elections, with projections indicating the far-right National Rally (RN) has been beaten into third place because of a tactical pact between the left and the centre.

In the first round a week ago, the RN won the most votes but a left-wing coalition, the New Popular Front (NFP), now appears on course to take the most seats after the second round. President Emmanuel Macron's centrist Ensemble alliance is projected to come second. No bloc will have a majority to govern on its own.

It's not clear who'll be the next prime minister but the incumbent from Macron's party, Gabriel Attal, has said he'll resign.

The informal pact saw many leftist or centrist candidates withdraw from run-offs to concentrate the vote against the far right.

The hard-left leader of the France Unbowed party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, welcomed the NFP's apparent win as a triumph against the far right and a defeat of Macron's agenda. Mélenchon hailed what he called a magnificent mobilisation effort. Supporters of the left are holding a victory rally at the Place de la Republique in central Paris.

RN leader Jordan Bardella said an "alliance of dishonour" had kept his party from power, throwing France into the arms of the extreme left. The party's former president, Marine Le Pen, said the projected result just delayed its victory.

Azadeh Moshiri
Reporting from Paris

Fireworks are going off in the Place de la République in Paris. People are climbing the statue of France’s beloved Marianne, the Republic's personification of liberty, equality and fraternity.

This is a celebration.

There’s a police presence but the mood isn’t violent here, it’s joyful.

Despite any political differences between them, these voters stood together against the far right. And no matter the uncertainty and negotiations that will follow, to many of them, this is a victory.

Thousands of people are taking to the streets across France as votes continue to be tallied.

From what we can see, most demonstrations appear peaceful. However there have been pockets of unrest in Nantes, in western France, where riot police deployed tear gas.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Reuters

Hugh Schofield
BBC News, Paris

Image source, EPA

The French have said it again: they do not want the far right in power.

When it came to a vote that really counted, they drew back from the brink.

This surprise upset which has reduced the National Rally (RN) to third place is due entirely to voters turning out in large numbers to stop them.

RN might argue that their defeat was only possible because the other parties came together to play the system.

But most French oppose their ideas, or fear the unrest that would inevitably attend its coming to power.

Read Hugh's full analysis here

As the sun set in Paris, this was the scene in Place de la République, where huge crowds have been gathering all day.

Left-wing supporters have been singing the Internationale, the communist and socialist anthem.

Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk has taken to social media to react to the unfolding count.

"In Paris enthusiasm, in Moscow disappointment, in Kyiv relief. Enough to be happy in Warsaw," Tusk wrote on X.

Tusk has previously voiced opposition to governments backing the Putin regime, and advocated for increased military aid for Ukraine.