A DEMOCRATIC revolution is under way in France. After the first round of the legislative elections on June 11th, President Emmanuel Macron’s party, La République en Marche! (LRM), looks set to win a landslide majority when voters return for a run-off vote next Sunday. As we predicted this week, his party is forecast to secure 390-430 seats out of 577 in the National Assembly, according to estimates of the early results by Ipsos, a pollster. This is an astonishing result for a party that Mr Macron founded only 14 months ago.

LRM, which got 32% of the vote, has crushed all the other parties. The Socialists, on 10%, are likely to lose about 90% of their seats, reducing their group to a rump of 20-35 deputies. The biggest opposition party will be the Republicans, which scored 22%. They are set to end up with 85-125 deputies, about half their current total. Neither party on the extremes did well. Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s far-left Unsubmissive France, on 11%, could grab 11-21 seats. On the far right, Marine Le Pen’s National Front, which scored 14%, can hope to secure just 3-10 seats. One of those seats may be her own: Ms Le Pen came out on top with 45-47% of the vote in the northern French constituency centred on Hénin-Beaumont, a former mining town, giving her a strong chance of securing the seat at the run-off.

Leaders of the disappointed parties were trying to brush off the all-round humiliation by pointing to low voter turnout. At around 50%, it is some eight points below that in the first round in 2012. Yet their complaints seem disingenuous. Mr Macron has so far this year defied all the rules governing French politics. When, against the odds, he won the presidency at his first attempt, naysayers suggested that he would never be able to govern. Now the 39-year-old looks set to secure a handsome majority, and in doing so will remake both the face of the National Assembly and the shape of French party politics.