Sharply upbeat start at Piazza Affari, amid positive European lists dragged by the French stock market after the outcome of the first round of legislative elections.

Marine Le Pen's far-right Rassemblement National (Rn) party won a historic victory but by a slightly smaller margin than some predicted, bringing down the odds that it could achieve an outright majority in parliament with next Sunday's runoff.

Around 9:30 a.m. the Ftse Mib is up 1.9 percent with the Paris Cac-40 jumping 2.6 percent in the early going.

Banking starts with momentum on the back of strong sector gains in France. In Milan, Bper and Mps stand out with gains of 4.7 percent and 4.2 percent respectively, with the biggies UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo a little further behind with gains of more than two percentage points.

Stellantis, which has close ties to France, gains 2.2 percent, while Telecom Italia limits rises to +1.2 percent on the day of the closing of the sale of NetCo to Kkr.

(Andrea Mandalà, editing Sabina Suzzi)