PARIS (Reuters – President Emmanuel Macron’s Bloc has emerged victorious in the majority of overseas French voter constituencies. They voted ahead of all other French citizens, with a greater challenge from the Left than 2017, but the bloc won.

11 seats of the 577 available in parliament are for areas where French citizens have a residence abroad.

Macron’s alliance “Ensemble”, won the most votes in 8 of the elections, while left-leaning NUPES, led by Jean-Luc Melenchon was in front in 2 of the 8.

The second round of voting will take place in Ensemble and NUPES. Ninety-seven percent of those who voted saw a run-off. It is an improvement on the performance of the left over 2017, which qualified for the second rounds in five constituencies. This was thanks to an unusual alliance between left-wing parties that challenged the presidency majority.

These elections will take place between June 18-19.

France’s voters will vote in two rounds, on June 12th and 19th. A poll by IFOP showed that Ensemble could fall below an absolute majority of parliamentarians, which may complicate Macron’s plans.

Macron’s only supporter was Manuel Valls. He is a former Socialist Prime Minister under Francois Hollande who ran for the Iberian peninsula constituency. It covers Spain Portugal Andorra, Monaco, and Andorra.

Macron backed Valls at the expense of his 2017 candidate, Stéphane Vojetta, who went onto run a dissident campaign against Valls and won to face the left-wing candidate in the run-off.

Valls tweeted, “An election a moment in truth”, accepting defeat. He then deleted his Twitter (NYSE.) account.

A minimum of 289 parliament seats is required to achieve absolute majority.

According to the IFOP poll, Ensemble won 270-311 seats and NUPES 170-205. Les Republicains, who were projected in the poll to gain 35-55 and Rassemblement Nationale (20-50) respectively are shown to the right.

Melenchon is running for a hard left ticket and has proposals to reduce the retirement age and raise the minimum wages. Macron will be seen as a liberal who will continue to undermine workers’ rights while serving the needs of the wealthy.

Macron stated in April that he will win the election to the legislature and his priority actions include combating climate change, raising retirement age, and other measures.