French far-right candidate, 22, enters parliament

French far-right candidate Marion Marechal-Le Pen, the 22-year-old niece of National Front party leader Marine Le Pen, rose to political stardom on Sunday by winning her party a seat in parliament for the first time since the mid-1980s, her chief of staff said.
   
For Marine Le Pen herself, provisional results were too close to call, French television said. She is running against Socialist candidate Philippe Kemel in the working class northern district of Henin-Beaumont.

France voted in a parliamentary run-off on Sunday expected to give President Francois Hollande's Socialist party a majority despite low turnout, strengthening his hand in battles over euro zone crisis policy.
   
The clear majority that surveys predict, freeing Hollande from reliance on nor eurosceptic hard leftists, as polls suggest, would be a boon as he prepares legislation to pare back the deficit and to ratify an EU fiscal discipline pact.
   
Initial results will be released at 8 p.m. , as early results come in from a Greek election where victory for the anti-austerity SYRIZA party could undermine its euro zone membership and send shockwaves through financial markets.
   
Opinion polls since last Sunday's first round suggest Hollande's Socialists stand a good chance of achieving the 289 seats needed for a majority in the National Assembly, even without adding seats from their allies in the Greens Party.
   
Added to their control of the Senate and the presidency, that would give the Socialists more power than they have ever held and should leave Hollande's largely social democratic and pro-Europe cabinet broadly intact.
   
The possible entry of Marine Le Pen's far-right National Front into parliament for the first time since the mid-1980s with up to three seats would be no more than an irritation.
   
But the Socialists have been concerned that low turnout might weigh on their score. Turnout at 5 p.m. was 46.2 percent, 3 percentage points down on the 2007 election and below that of last Sunday, when the final turnout hit a new low at 57 percent.

"I hope the Socialists get a majority. It's got to be better than power-sharing: at least they will be able to get something done," said Philippe Jauseau, 47, a computer engineer voting in Paris.
   
Hollande will fly to Mexico on Monday for the first of a flurry of summits. His decision to side with southern nations weary of austerity has opened a rift with Europe's paymaster Germany that the Socialist needs to fix fast.
  
 In recent days, he has toned down calls for joint euro zone bonds - bowing to Berlin's insistence that this is only a long-term prospect - and is pushing instead for 120 billion euros in short-term stimulus measures.
   
Hollande may encounter left-wing resistance if a public finance audit due by end-June shows that France must slow its spending promises to meet its deficit goals, as it is expected to do.
   
He may also struggle to keep eurosceptic Socialist lawmakers behind him if he agrees to Germany's demand for deeper political integration in Europe. Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said on Sunday that any steps toward European federalism would need to ensure that national parliaments provided oversight.
   
"Hollande's biggest political test will be to keep his party united if he is forced to adopt economic policies that are unpopular with the electorate," political analyst Antonio Barroso of Eurasia Group said in a note to clients.
   
The new government is under pressure to give impetus to the euro zone's second-largest economy, where unemployment has hit a 13-year high of 10 percent. With heavy commercial and banking links to southern Europe, many fear France could be in the firing line should the euro zone crisis spread.

REUTERS