Far-right leader Marine Le Pen on Sunday won a seat in the French parliament, but her anti-EU National Front (FN) party faced disappointment, winning only four to eight seats, polls and party figures said.

The number of lawmakers, if confirmed, would be too small to form a parliamentary group which would give the FN a role in setting the agenda and win positions on committees.

Le Pen, 48, who lost her presidential bid to centrist Emmanuel Macron, triumphed in her northern fiefdom of Henin-Beaumont, a depressed former mining town, the town's FN mayor Steeve Briois said.

Le Pen's partner and vice-president of the party Louis Aliot told AFP he had been elected from his constituency in southwest France.

The overall results will be a huge disappointment for the nationalist and anti-EU party which had once hoped to emerge as the main opposition in parliament to Macron's centrist party.

There was also disappointment for senior FN figure Florian Philippot, the architect of the FN's policies to scrap the euro common currency, who lost in the former industrial area of Moselle in eastern France.

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Macron party readies for parliamentary assault
Paris (AFP) June 10, 2017
The year-old centrist party of French President Emmanuel Macron prepared Saturday for the first round of parliamentary elections looking set to grab the lead in the race for a clear majority. Macron swept away far-right candidate Marine Le Pen to win the presidency on May 7, but has only achieved half the job. Macron's Republique en Marche (Republic on the Move, REM) party, which he only ... read more

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