France's Raffarin confirmed as PM

Raffarin and his "government of action" have won plaudits

PARIS, France (CNN) -- France's interim Prime Minister Pierre Raffarin has been confirmed in the post after a convincing win for the centre-right in France's parliamentary elections.

Raffarin, 53, who has impressed many voters with his common touch, has promised to do all President Jacques Chirac pledged in his presidential re-election campaign -- crack down on crime, cut taxes, ease employment regulations and overhaul the pension system. (Raffarin profile)

Raffarin, who earlier met Chirac to offer his resignation in keeping with electoral tradition, is to name a largely unchanged Cabinet on Tuesday, officials said. Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, the interim minister for European affairs would go, however, as he is being investigated over party funding irregularities.

Chirac was celebrating after the former socialist parliament was unceremoniously crushed while the far right failed to make any headway.

The right, led by Chirac's Union for the Presidential Majority, a coalition of rightist parties put together to win votes, captured 384 of the National Assembly's 577 seats in Sunday's election, the Interior Ministry said on Monday, issuing provisional results.

The left, from Communists to Socialists to Greens, won only 171 seats -- a stinging blow that put the left in the opposition and Chirac in full control in parliament for the first time in five years. The left had previously held 318 seats.

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Final results from the voting -- marked by a record low turnout of just 61 percent -- were not expected until Tuesday or Wednesday. They will include results from France's overseas territories.

The full cabinet is expected to be named on Tuesday. The 27-member government is expected to be slightly enlarged but not radically changed in the main ministries.

Chirac will now be free from the so-called "co-habitation" power-sharing structure he was forced to endure under the previous left-dominated parliament led by former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.

CNN's Jim Bittermann in Paris said: "The surprising combination of electoral events this spring, which not even Chirac anticipated, has led to a complete turnabout in the president's political fortunes.

Chirac: A dramatic eight weeks of elections for the president

"It's a turnabout some call the luckiest in French history -- something they do not say about France's football fortunes." (Analysis)

A big loser in the election was the extreme-right National Front, which won no seats at all as voters further stamped out a brief surge by its leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who shocked the world by qualifying for last month's presidential run-off but a week later was swept aside by a Chirac landslide.

"Elections don't solve problems," Raffarin said on Sunday night, pledging to live up to voter demands.

The French parliament, meeting in extraordinary session in July, is expected to immediately start pushing through legislation. At the top of the agenda are two new laws to fight rising crime that would strengthen the hand of police and speed up the cumbersome justice system.

Lower taxes, promised by Chirac, pension reform and an increase in defence spending are also on the agenda. The Gaullist Chirac is expected to move cautiously on any privatisation of state-owned companies.

Le Pen was unable to repeat his presidential election success in the parliamentary ballot

Chirac's team was expected to ease application of the shortened working week -- the flagship legislation of the previous leftist government that Chirac has said he would keep.

The controversial labour minister who promoted the 35-hour working week, Martine Aubry -- daughter of socialist former EU chief Jacques Delors -- lost her seat.

Other prominent leftists from Jospin's Cabinet to lose their races included former environment minister Dominique Voynet and Jean-Pierre Chevenement, a former interior minister.

"Five Years to Change France" read the headline of the conservative daily Le Figaro. On a more cynical note, the leftist daily Liberation headlined "Five Years Firm," an allusion to the French expression for when a judge hands down a jail sentence.

The National Front ran in 37 legislative districts but won none of them. Le Pen's daughter, Marine, lost her race in northern France, and his deputy, Bruno Gollnisch, also lost.

The 73-year-old Le Pen used the defeat to question the assembly's relevance and criticise France's membership in the European Union.

"It is a rump assembly, since it will only vote in 40 percent of the laws applied in France -- the other 60 percent are reserved for (EU headquarters) Brussels," he said.