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FRANCE'S Socialists have won control of parliament, handing President Francois Hollande the convincing majority he needs to push through his tax-and-spend agenda to battle the eurozone debt crisis.

The Socialists' bloc obtained 314 seats - an absolute majority in the 577-seat National Assembly - and so will not need to rely on the Greens or the far left, according to official results.

The far-right National Front was set to return to parliament for the first time since 1998 after winning two seats in the south of the country, although party leader Marine Le Pen lost her own bid for a seat.

Mr Hollande, who defeated conservative Nicolas Sarkozy in the presidential election in May, had urged voters to give him the MPs he needs to steer France through the eurozone crisis, rising unemployment and a faltering economy.

"The task before us is immense," Hollande's Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said as results came in from the run-off vote. "Nothing will be easy."

Mr Sarkozy's UMP and its allies won 229 seats, the Socialist-allied Greens 17 seats and the far-left Left Front 10, according to final results released by the interior ministry yesterday.

While Mr Le Pen's anti-immigrant and anti-EU National Front (FN) was set to return two to four MPs to parliament, she will not be among them.

Mr Le Pen, who has said her success in the first-round parliamentary vote made her party France's "third political force", demanded a recount after she was narrowly defeated by a Socialist in a northern former mining constituency.

But the telegenic Le Pen nevertheless rejoiced in the overall success of her party, whose image she has fought to soften from the days of her father Jean-Marie's provocative outbursts.

"This is an enormous success," Marine Le Pen said in Henin-Beaumont.

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Socialists take majority control in France