And we begin with breaking news from France, where the country's far-right party is celebrating what appears to be a dramatic win over President Emmanuel Macron's centrist party. They now appear set to take the biggest number of seats in France's parliament after today's first round of elections in a stinging defeat for Macron. It also has the potential to change the relationship between the US and one of its closest allies. Macron shocked everyone and called a surprise election just weeks before Paris is set to host the world for the Olympic Games. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen, warning her supporters to solidify their power by showing up for next weekend's second round of voting.

We need an absolute majority in order to enact that change that the country is desperately in need of.

Cnn's Jim Bitterman is outside the party headquarters of the presidential coalition Commission. Jim, how stunning are these results?

Well, just to correct you, I'm at the Prime Minister's office where we have just heard from the Prime Minister, basically, saying that the various opponents of the National Rally, the far-right party here, are going to have to form a barricade against them ever coming to power. What he said is this, Our objective is clear, prevent the National Rally from having an absolute majority in the second round from dominating the National Assembly. Now, according to the projections we have, the National Rally Party, the far-right party, would get somewhere between 230 to 280 seats in the new parliament. They will need 289 seats if they want to have a majority. So it looks like the other parties involved here are going to form a blockade, tell their voters not to vote for the right extremity team, right wing, and hopefully get their candidates in. Now, that doesn't mean that there's going to be a walk in the park for Mr. Macron, because in fact, he's going to have to rule. He's a President for the next three years. He's going to have to stay in office and have a parliament that basically is of the opposite party.

There won't be a majority of the opposite party, but they'll have a parliament that will be working against him at every stage of the game. A hung parliament, essentially, something they call the co gravitation here in France. That means basically power sharing. But Macron's got powers. He has power over defense. He has powers over foreign policy. But the purse strings are controlled from here at the Prime Minister's office. And so it'll depend on who becomes the Prime Minister, and that'll depend on who wins the next round of elections next Sunday.

Jim, I wonder, did Macron anticipate or brace for this? Or did he have some other objective for his decision to have a Snap election?

Well, Fred, ever since he called it, there have been analysts trying to figure that out. Why would he do it? Big question mark. I think basically there are a couple of things. First, he was hoping that he would get some more of his Confederates and parliamentary seats, but that didn't happen. It wasn't really likely to happen. From the first opinion polls, it seemed very unlikely that would happen. But otherwise, maybe in the background, he had the idea that putting the National Rally Party, the Extreme Right Party, into power would make them lose, in a sense, lose the voters. There are places in France where they have come to power, in cities, for example, and in some villages. And in those places, they have not done such a great job of governing. So governing is a whole lot different than running for elections. And as a consequence, I think maybe the back of his mind was that if they came close to power, they would just make so many mistakes that the public would be turned off. Interesting.

Quite the gamble. Either way. All right, Jim Bitterman.Thank you so much.For sure. Yeah. Let's talk more about this with Paris Bureau Chief for the Economist, Sophie Petter. All right. Good to see you, Sophie. What do you think about that latter possible goal or motivation of Macron? That there's some expectation that the far-right party members would gain some seats, let them rule, or let them be empowered in certain corners. People might discover they're not very good at it, and so thereby, Macron wins. It's a crazy psychology, but what do you think?

It's not implausible. I mean, it's a great mystery, as Jim just said. We've been trying to work this out since the day he dissolved Parliament. Why has he done it? It is the case that Emmanuel Macron himself cannot be seven at the next presidential election because you're not allowed under the French Constitution to hold more than two consecutive terms in office. So it may be that what he wants to do is to show the voters that you can make... You can do politics on the campaign trail. You can make promises. You can have all extravagant pledges in your manifestos. But when you actually get into office, it's a whole lot more difficult. And that that could be a of exposing some of the contradictions of their programs and of what power and the exercise of power really means. But if that is the answer, then it's a big gamble because it's not at all sure that that is what would happen at the end of three years in office. I think before we even get to that point, we're looking at really a lot of uncertainty. We don't even know if the Le Penne's party can form a government.

We don't know if she would even want to try and form a government unless she wins a majority. If she doesn't, she might not even want to go to power. So there's just so much uncertainty here about what is going to happen. And that, I think, is what's also making people feel very uncomfortable.

Really? So there's a thinking that perhaps Marine Le Penne would not want a victory, so to speak? I mean, the second round of voting is going to take place next week, that maybe it would be more than she can chew?

I think that she's got a lot of confidence in her 20th 28-year-old, and that's not a mistake, he's 28 years old, her protégé, Jordan Bardella, this is the young guy who's now in charge of the party. He's never held a job outside politics in his life, but he's very much her left-hand, right-hand man. He is going to be the candidate she brought forward for Prime Minister. In a way, she doesn't have to govern. She has him to do the job for her, and that takes the risk for her out of it. But I think for him, to be whether he really wants to go ahead and try and form a government, which would be unbelievably unstable, because if you don't have a majority, the opposition will bring you down. You can imagine a period of time where you have one prime minister who tries to form a government, then the president of the government tries to form a government, and these keep falling. That's the problem with the whole parliament, because it looks very difficult for any of those three big blocks that now exist in French politics, the center, the left, and the right, the far right, to do any coalition with each other.

And that's the real problem.

So Marine Le Pen, while she may not be governing, she is the face of the movement. So does she get the credit and the blame if things go great or things go terribly?

Well, I think that's if this situation were to arise, it would she be able to keep her hands free, clean up to a point for 2027 and then run for the presidency. That's a It must be part of her calculation. She will sit in Parliament, even if her party does become or doesn't. She will sit in parliament. She's been elected at the first round. If you get over 50% of the vote, which she did, she has already been elected as a deputy in the Parliament for the coming session. But I think that what she wants to do is, they're just in a voyant mood. You should see them this evening. They are really in a roll here. They feel that the wind is behind them. And this is a party that is going to do what it can to get into power and show its photos that it's not just a protest movement. This is a party that's prepared to govern. That's their plan.

All right, Sophie Petter. Thank you so much.