PARIS — Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) party scored historic gains to win the first round of France’s parliamentary election, but the final outcome will depend on days of alliance-building before next week’s run-off vote.

The RN and allies had 33% of the vote, followed by a leftwing bloc with 28% and President Emmanuel Macron’s centrists with just 20%, official results from the interior ministry showed on Monday.

That was a huge setback for Mr. Macron who had called the snap election after his ticket was trounced by the RN in European Parliament elections last month.

But whether the anti-immigrant, Euroskeptic RN will be able to form a government will depend on next week’s decisive round and how successfully other parties manage to thwart Ms. Le Pen by rallying round the best-placed rival candidates in constituencies across France.

Leaders of both the leftwing New Popular Front and Macron’s centrist alliance made clear on Sunday night they would withdraw their own candidates in districts where another candidate was better placed to beat the RN in next Sunday’s runoff.

A longtime pariah for many in France, the RN is now closer to power than it has ever been. Le Pen has sought to clean up the image of a party known for racism and antisemitism, a tactic that has worked amid voter anger at Macron, the high cost of living and growing concerns over immigration.

An RN-led government would raise major questions over where the European Union (EU) was headed, given its resistance to further EU integration. Economists have also asked whether its spending plans are fully funded.

The euro touched a two-week high during Asian trading on Monday on market relief the RN had not done better.

“I think it’s a slight ‘well, there were no surprises’, so there was a sense of relief there,” said Fiona Cincotta, senior markets analyst at City Index.

RN lawmakers on Monday urged center-right politicians in the Republicans (LR) party, which received less than 7% of the first-round vote, to withdraw from districts where such a move would work in RN’s favor.

“If they know they’re not going to win, I’m calling on them to stand down and let the national side win,” RN lawmaker Laure Lavalette told RTL radio.

For now, the Republicans party, which split ahead of the vote with a small number of its lawmakers joining the RN, has given no indication of its stance.

All candidates who made it through the first round have until Tuesday evening to confirm whether they will go into the second. — Reuters

MYANMAR arrested four executives of supermarket chains, including an official of a Japanese joint venture, for selling rice at inflated prices, state media said on Monday, as the war-torn country’s ruling junta struggles to stabilize its economy.

The impoverished Southeast Asian country has been in turmoil since its military deposed an elected civilian government in February 2021, sparking widespread protests that have morphed into a nationwide armed resistance.

Authorities said they arrested 11 people, including rice traders and officials of mills and retailers, accusing them of inflating prices by 31% to 70% from prescribed levels, the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.

In Tokyo, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary, Yoshimasa Hayashi, said police in Myanmar’s commercial capital of Yangon were questioning a Japanese national.

“The Japanese government intends to continue taking appropriate steps while urging local authorities for his early release,” he told reporters.

Such efforts include maintaining contact with the Japanese citizen’s employer and offering necessary support, he added.

The junta-run Myanmar newspaper said an executive from supermarket chain Aeon Orange, a joint venture between Japan’s Aeon Co 8267.T and Yangon-based Creation Myanmar, was among those arrested.

A junta spokesman did not respond to a telephone call to seek comment.

An Aeon spokesperson told Reuters that a company employee had been detained in Myanmar, and it was working with the Japanese embassy to get more details.

The owner of a rice mill in Myanmar said many businesses in the sector were struggling because of a mismatch between the official foreign exchange rate and black market rates governing most transactions, such as buying imported fuel and fertilizer.

“It is a loss for us to sell the rice at the government’s standard rate,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity as the issue is a sensitive one.

“Myanmar still has plenty of rice. This situation has happened because the government wants to restrict the price.”

For years, black market rates for Myanmar’s kyat currency have been significantly higher than the central bank’s reference rate of 2,100 to the dollar.

The currency hit a record black market low of about 4,500 to the dollar in late May, and has since stayed broadly around that level, three foreign exchange traders said.

Amid escalating violence, poverty in Myanmar is more widespread than at any time in the last six years and labour shortages and a depreciating currency have made it harder to do business, the World Bank has said.

Last month, the junta arrested 35 people, cracking down on gold and foreign exchange traders and agents selling foreign real estate, in a bid to prop up the fast-depreciating currency. — Reuters

SEOUL — An online petition calling for South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol to be impeached experienced delays and disruptions due to the large number of people trying to sign it, the speaker of the parliament said, promising to fix the issue as soon as possible.

More than 811,000 people have so far signed the petition, hosted on the National Assembly’s website, since it went live on June 20. The petition calls on parliament to introduce a bill to impeach Mr. Yoon on the grounds that he is unfit for the job.

In a statement late on Sunday, National Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik apologized for the disruption, and said parliament would take action to uphold the public’s constitutional right.

People trying to access the petition on Monday faced delays that lasted up to four hours. At one point, an error message showed more than 30,000 people were waiting to access the site.

There was no immediate comment from the presidential office.

The petition accuses Mr. Yoon of corruption, stoking the risk of war with North Korea and exposing South Koreans to health risks by not stopping Japan from releasing treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant.

By law, parliament is required to assign any petition signed by more than 50,000 people to a committee which will then decide whether to put it to the assembly for a vote.

But the opposition Democratic Party which holds a majority in parliament is hesitant about turning the petition into an impeachment bill, media reports say, with a spokesperson saying the party has yet to discuss the matter.

The parliament can call for a president’s impeachment with a two-thirds majority. The Constitutional Court then deliberates that motion and decides to remove or reinstate the president.

Mr. Yoon has been unpopular since taking office in 2022, with his latest approval ratings hovering around the 25 percent mark since April.

South Korea’s parliament has twice impeached presidents: Roh Moo-hyun in 2004 and Park Geun-hye in 2017. Roh was reinstated by the Constitutional Court while Park was removed. — Reuters