Article Excerpt 
 
 PARIS—President François Hollande secured the parliamentary majority he says he needs to revive France's economy and help repair the euro zone, after voters gave his Socialist Party a commanding lead in Sunday's legislative elections. 
 
 Because a Socialist-led coalition already controls the Senate, the upper house, Mr. Hollande will now have a supportive Parliament to back his policies. 
 
 But with a stalling economy at home, and uncertainties in Greece over whether a coalition government may emerge from Sunday's legislative elections, Mr. Hollande may have to shelve some of his costly proposals—such as hiring 12,000 civil servants a year—and instead resort to ... 

 Miss Maréchal-Le Pen, a law undergraduate, came top in her constituency in the southeastern Vaucluse department wtih 49.09 per cent of the vote after a rival Socialist refused to bow out to her mainstream Right rival. 
 
 Her grandfather, who founded the anti-immigrant, anti-EU party and turns 84 this week, was by her side last night to toast her victory. His party won 35 seats in 1986 only to lose them all after proportional representation was scrapped. It had only one other since, in 1997, but the result was cancelled shortly afterwards. 
 
 "I am happy to the spokeswoman for this French youth that tomorrow will be spearhead new hope in the shape of the National Front," she said from the Provençal town of Carpentras. "6.4 million French voters have already joined us (in presidential elections) and it's just the beginning." 
 
 Family celebrations among France's far-Right dynasty were slightly marred however by the fact that Marine Le Pen, Mr Le Pen's daughter and FN leader, lost a bitterly close battle in the constituency of Hénin Beaumont in the northern Pas de Calais. Miss Le Pen lost by just 118 votes to a Socialist, and called for a recount. 
 
 Despite her personal defeat, the FN leader described her niece's entrance into parliament as a "huge success" for her party that had "finally smashed a glass ceiling in place for the past 25 years". 
 
 "The new make-up of (French) political life is underway. Tonight the UMP is paying for its ideological contradictions and its political compromises. 
 
 Her father said he had mixed feelings. "A part of me is rejoicing and another is in pain," he said. 
 
 The other far-Right MP was flamboyant lawyer Gilbert Collard in the southern Gard department.
– As predicted, the left coalition led by the Socialist Party has cruised to a majority win in the National Assembly's lower house, taking 314 of 577 seats, reports the Wall Street Journal. The win gives the Socialists, who already control the upper-house Senate, total control of the National Assembly—granting newly elected President François Hollande freedom to pursue policies of growth over austerity and freeing his party from having to get the backing of the Greens and far-left parties. "This new solid and large majority will allow us to vote in laws of change and places upon us great responsibilities in France and Europe," Hollande's foreign minister said. But it was a bad night for one Socialist: Segolene Royal, Hollande's former partner and mother of his four children. She was defeated by a dissident member of the same party, ending the former party leader's hopes of becoming speaker of the National Assembly. The far-right Front National won its first National Assembly seats in nearly a quarter century, including one for Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, the granddaughter of Front National Founder Jean Marie Le Pen, who is, at 22 years old, the youngest MP in modern French history, notes the Telegraph.