French President Emmanuel Macron (C) shakes hands on June 10, 2017, as he arrives in Le Touquet, northern France | Philippe Huguen/AFP via Getty Images Macron’s party set for big majority after parliamentary vote First round of election highlights collapse of traditional parties.

PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron's centrist party is on course to win a massive majority after the first round of France's parliamentary election, which also confirmed the collapse of traditional parties.

Projections showed Macron’s La République en Marche (LRM) — a movement-turned party that is barely a year old — and their allies winning some 32 percent of the vote. Pollsters estimated they could win more than 450 of the 577 seats in the National Assembly in a runoff vote next Sunday.

Next came the conservative Les Républicains party with around 21 percent of the vote and Marine Le Pen's National Front with about 14 percent.

If the predictions prove correct, Macron and his allies from the MoDem party would have total control over parliament. That would give the 39-year old president, elected last month, a free hand to carry out reforms starting with a controversial overhaul of hiring and firing rules.

"My dear compatriots — France is back," said Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, who was appointed by Macron a few weeks before the vote. "Next Sunday, the National Assembly will show the new face of the republic."

'No opposition'

The landslide in Macron's favor crushed rival parties, notably those on the Left.

The Socialist Party won only around 10 percent of the vote, while Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left France Insoumise (France Unbowed) movement was on 11 percent, leaving the traditional Left with just a sliver of representation in parliament.

By that standard, Les Républicains, led by former finance minister François Baroin during the campaign, fared better. But given that party leaders expected a month ago to win a majority in parliament, the result is a major rebuke. Seen winning less than 120 seats, the party is likely to become further divided — between a hard-right fringe determined to oppose Macron at every turn and a more conciliatory center seeking compromise.

“When you look at the score, you can see there is no opposition,” conservative MEP Rachida Dati said on BFMTV.

“The only one [opposition] that could exist is the Right. It needs to find intelligence — it’s lost it. It needs to find coherence — it’s got none.”

The Socialists and the Les Républicains — France's traditional major parties — were already in crisis before Sunday's result, having failed to make the second round of the presidential election last month.

Symbolizing the spectacular demise of the Socialist Party, which held the presidency and ran the government for the past five years, some big-name candidates were knocked out in the first round of the parliamentary election. Among them were party boss Jean-Christophe Cambadélis and former presidential candidate Benoît Hamon.

Le Pen safe, her party battered

Marine Le Pen's far-right National Front party also struggled badly.

Coming off her defeat to Macron in the second round of the presidential election, Le Pen aimed to win more than 15 seats in parliament, a number that would have granted her party clout and financial rewards.

Instead, the National Front is unlikely to get more than 10 seats, with electoral strategist Nicolas Bay and other senior party officials knocked out in the first round.

Record-high abstention among National Front voters, a wave of support for Macron and open divisions in the far-right camp all hurt its chances.

Le Pen herself fared better than most of her lieutenants. She won more than 45 percent of the vote in her northern district, a score that makes her likely to win a seat next Sunday.

In a statement, she blamed "catastrophic abstention" and an unfair electoral system for keeping her party out of power.

"We have to question a system that keeps millions of compatriots away from the ballot boxes," she said.

Abstention dampener

Indeed, a record-high abstention rate of around 50 percent cast a shadow over Macron’s victory.

Rival party leaders emphasized the low turnout to argue that France was suffering from “democratic fatigue” — and that the score did not fairly reflect France’s diversity of opinion.

“This [result] is the sign of an immense democratic fatigue,” said Socialist chief Cambadélis, whose party is set for dozens of layoffs as its poor result means it will lose large amounts of public funding. “They [Macron’s movement] were unable to stop the process of citizens disengaging from the democratic process.”

“We will have a National Assembly without any debate worthy of the name,” he added.

This article has been updated with new information.