What just happened during the shock elections in France?

Nobody expected this. A tragedy, certainly, but a shock.

When the images were broadcast on all the major French networks, it was not the far right of Marine Le Pen and her young Prime Minister-in-waiting Jordan Bardella who were in the running for victory.

The left won, and Emmanuel Macron’s centrists made an unexpected comeback, pushing the far-right National Rally (RN) into third place.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the veteran leftist seen by his detractors as an extremist, wasted no time in proclaiming his victory.

“The president must call on the New Popular Front to govern,” he told supporters in Stalingrad Square, insisting that Mr Macron must acknowledge that he and his coalition had lost.

His alliance, hastily assembled in anticipation of the surprise election of President Macron, includes his own radical party, France Insoumise, as well as Greens, Socialists, Communists and even Trotskyists. But their victory is nowhere large enough to govern.

France will find itself with a parliament without an absolute majority. None of the three blocs can form an absolute majority of 289 seats out of the 577 in Parliament.

As soon as he finished his speech, Mr Mélenchon went to a much larger square, Place de la République, to celebrate his success in front of a crowd of 8,000 people, according to police figures.

For supporters of the National Rally, the champagne quickly turned to failure at their party in the Bois de Vincennes, southwest of Paris.

Just a week ago, there was still talk of a possible absolute majority, and Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella were still talking about their chances a few days before the vote.

Marine Le Pen made a good showing. “Two years ago, we only had seven deputies. Tonight, the RN is the leading party in France in terms of the number of deputies.”

In the last legislature they had 88 MPs and now they are more than 140, so she was right. And no other party has more than 100 MPs, because the Macronists and the Popular Front are both coalitions.

Jordan Bardella lamented that his party had been undermined by unnatural “alliances of dishonor” forged by a “single party” made up of the Macron camp and the left. He was not wrong about this unnatural alliance, but it is only temporary and circumstantial.

More than 200 candidates who considered themselves part of a “republican front” withdrew from the second round so that a better-placed rival could prevent the RN from winning.

Even Marine Le Pen’s younger sister, Marie-Caroline, was unable to offer a glimmer of good news from her own electoral battle around Le Mans.

His bid to enter parliament failed by just 225 votes, beaten by Mr Mélenchon’s candidate, Elise Leboucher, after Macron’s candidate withdrew.

The turnout, at 66.63%, was the highest in a second round of legislative elections since 1997. Even though the RN vote held up, this time it had to face non-RN votes often used tactically to create a “barrier” or blockage against it.

All over France, the RN was losing the second rounds that it was supposed to win.

Some of their candidates were not very attractive.

There was the woman who promised to stop making racist jokes if she was elected in Puy-de-Dôme; and then there was the ill-equipped young man from Haute-Savoie, in the southeast, who took part in a televised debate with his centrist rival and said almost nothing sensible.

They both lost, but they reflect the RN’s great advance in rural areas.

The RN won 32% of the vote – 37% with its right-wing allies – and for more than 10 million voters, a taboo was broken.

In Meaux, east of Paris, the RN won but only just.

After voting, Claudine said that people she knew tended not to admit to voting RN unless they were accompanied by close friends.

Before the results were announced at 8pm, speculation was rife that President Macron would speak. Rumour had it that he had gone to a meeting 90 minutes earlier.

Gabriel Attal, its embattled Prime Minister, finally seemed to give the government’s response.

Four weeks ago, he sat, impassive and arms crossed, across from the president as Mr Macron revealed his election plan.

He has now announced that he will hand in his resignation to his boss tomorrow morning, but will remain in his post for as long as his duty requires.

Mr Attal is due to fly out on Tuesday evening for a NATO meeting in Washington. It is hard to imagine him being replaced in the immediate future.

France has entered a period of political instability with no clear end in sight. There has been talk of street unrest, but only a few incidents have been reported in Paris and cities such as Nantes and Lyon,

All eyes are now on the president, who will have to find a way out of this impasse.

The new National Assembly is due to meet in ten days, but the Paris Olympics begin on July 26 and France could use a period of calm.

The left-wing newspaper Libération summed up the whole evening with the title It’s crazy.

“It’s crazy” in everyday French, but for them it is also a relief that the voters put an end to the RN’s attempt to take power.