London | France faces fresh political uncertainty, with an intractable hung parliament carved up between three blocs, after a shock election result on Monday AEST that pushed Marine Le Pen’s right-wing populist National Rally party into third place.

President Emmanuel Macron – whose own coalition of centrist parties did better than expected in the second round of the snap parliamentary election – has succeeded in his risky ploy to thwart National Rally’s surge. But he now has to fend off the vote-topping forces of the populist left to avoid political paralysis.