French Socialists win parliamentary control

PARIS -- President François Hollande's Socialist Party and its allies won an absolute majority in the National Assembly, exit polls showed, paving the way for them to pass legislation without the aid of other members of parliament.

The Socialist bloc won 314 out of the 577 seats, pollster CSA said, with 289 needed for a majority. Former President Nicolas Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement party and its allies have 228 seats, CSA said, and the anti-euro National Front won two seats. Turnout in the second and decisive round of legislative elections Sunday was 56 percent.

"The French people have amplified their call for change," Socialist Party head Martine Aubry said on France 2 television.

The victory gives the Socialists control of practically every political institution in France -- the presidency, the upper and lower houses of parliament, all but two of the regions and most of the country's big cities, communes and departments -- a first in the Fifth Republic.

"The result means that President Hollande and his government have free reins to continue to govern," said Thomas Costerg, an economist at Standard Chartered Bank in London. "With domestic politics now out of the way, investors' focus will probably turn to the domestic economy, which has shown recently worrying signs of deterioration, and to the Franco-German relationship, which has yet to reach cruise speed."

Since being sworn in on May 15, Hollande has pushed back against austerity measures German Chancellor Angela Merkel had advocated to tame Europe's debt crisis. Still, Hollande has said growth can't come from the increase in spending that the communist-backed Left Front has demanded.