Reuters
A shock election win for France's leftist alliance has reinforced wariness among investors who had already braced for the risk of political deadlock and a policy paralysis that's unlikely to improve the country's creaking public finances. The left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) alliance won the most seats in Sunday's election, but fell far short of an absolute majority, a big surprise after Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN) led opinion polls. France, at the centre of the euro project and the bloc's second biggest economy, still faces a hung parliament and taxing negotiations to form a government as markets had already anticipated - just with the left in pole position, rather than the far-right.