THE newly elected French parliament began its first session yesterday, with communists warning that the new majority aims to destroy the country’s “social model.”

President Emmanuel Macron’s Republic on the Move party won 308 of 577 seats in the lower house earlier this month — just 14 months after is foundation — with its Democratic Movement (Modem) ally taking another 42.

MPs will get to work on legislating for increased police powers and attacks on workers’ protection from dismissal.

The French Communist Party (PCF), following a weekend meeting of its national council, said in a statement that Mr Macron’s supporters in parliament “will support the immediate implementation of his projects to destroy the French social model.”

It said the party would join “all struggles and rallies to force the head of state, his government, his legislative majority and the Medef [the French employers’ federation] to back down.”

The statement said the recent presidential and parliamentary elections that brought Mr Macron to power had marked an “unprecedented alteration of the political landscape.”

It pointed out that the candidates of the previously dominant parties, the Socialists and the Republicans, had both failed to reach the second round of this year’s presidential elections.

Turnout in the run-off between Mr Macron and National Front leader Marine Le Pen also hit a historic low, which the PCF said showed the “rejection of the political practices and institutions that have been commandeered and locked down by the elite.

“The very nature of the regime is shaken to the core, and the democratic, human and social freedoms and rights of our people are threatened,” the communists warned.

But the PCF admitted that its failure to agree a joint electoral list with Jean-Luc Melenchon’s new left-wing France Unbowed (FI) party had contributed to its poor showing, with just 11 MPs elected as part of the United Left front.

Communist MPs have suggested the creation of a “liaison committee” with the 17-strong FI group.

The national council also announced an extraordinary congress next year to devise new strategies and organisational models.

“We must reinvent our party to go forward in the 21st century,” it said, while building “a political structure that would represent the majority and include all of the forces of the left.”