Image source, Reuters

Gabriel Attal, President Macron's prime minister, has said that the far right is "at the gates of power".

Attal warned that "tonight is not like any other night" and called on voters to "prevent the National Rally from winning an absolute majority in the second round."

To this end, he said, candidates from the Macron-led Ensemble alliance that qualify for the second round but have no chance of winning will withdraw to give the non RN-candidate the best chance to win.

"Our objective now is to stop the RN from winning an absolute majority and to lead the country with their disastrous project," he said.

"Not a single vote should go to the National Rally," he added.

We were told there would be a big turnout, and at an estimated 65.5% we got one: the highest in a parliamentary election since 1997.

It's that rare because, since 2002, the vote for parliament has always followed around a month after presidential elections, so the stakes have never been that high.

Until now, when Emmanuel Macron dissolved the National Assembly and upended the workings of French democracy.

It wasn't just National Rally that got its voters out, because the left-wing New Popular Front did too, and Prime Minister Gabriel Attal says hundreds of Ensemble candidates will still be there to fight on in the second round.

This is what the breakdown in seats looks like, according to the France Télévisions-Radio France exit poll.

Other exit polls suggest RN could win an absolute majority next Sunday, but this one shows that at best they are only a few seats short of the 289 they need, with a range of 230-280 seats.

Image source, .

Image source, Reuters

It's been quite a day, with lots of projection, polling and now, some results. If you’re just joining us, here’s a round up of what’s been happening on a historic day in France:

• The far-right National Rally (RN) party are projected to have won the most votes in the first round of the parliamentary election – with exit polls predicting they took around 34%
• Exit polls put the left-wing coalition, the New Popular Front, in second place – a group created to combat the far right in this election – on around 28%
• President Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble centrist grouping is in third with about 20%
• The RN's Marine Le Pen says Macron’s party was “practically wiped out”
• Jordan Bardella, RN's leader, has called this election France’s “most consequential” in 60 years
• Other party leaders, however, have called on citizens to vote tactically in the second round next week and reject the far right
• Jean-Luc Melenchon of the hard-left France Unbowed party has vowed to “pull out" candidates in areas where his party has polled third, to give a greater chance of defeating the far right
• Voter turnout is projected at 67.5%, according to market research group the Elabe organisation, external – which would be the highest turnout in a legislative election since 1981

As we've been reporting, French voters came out in huge numbers today in the first round of the parliamentary election.

President Emmanuel Macron, who chose to address the country from a written statement, commended people for their high participation, saying "it proves the importance of this vote for all our compatriots".

While we wait to get some more reaction to these results, here's a look at how things unfolded today - in pictures.

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, KENZO TRIBOUILLARD / AFP

From the extreme fringes of French society, this rebranded far-right party is now knocking at the gates of power.

One of its founders, Pierre Bousquet, was in the Nazi Waffen SS during World War Two, another key official was a collaborator in France's Vichy regime.

Wind forward to 2002, when Marine Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, made it to the presidential election run-off in 2002 as leader of the National Front.

France held its breath and less than 18% of voters backed him.

When France voted for its National Assembly in 2017, the National Front won only eight seats and came third with 13% in the first round.

A year later Marine Le Pen renamed her party Rassemblement National (National Rally) and in 2022 it won 89 seats, scoring only 18.7% in the first round.

RN won 31.4% three weeks ago in the European elections, but if tonight's exit poll of 34% is confirmed, just in terms of voter numbers across France, it's unprecedented and historic.

No wonder Jordan Bardella is calling next Sunday's vote "one of the most decisive in the history of the Fifth Republic".

I’m in the majestical prefecture government building which resembles the Élysée Palace a little. It’s where the results are beginning to come in from this part of France.

Counting is well under way in Toulouse and too early to call in France’s fourth city, but in the suburbs it’s clear already that President Macron’s centrist alliance is doing badly - coming a distant third behind both the far right and the left-wing alliance.

However, the government’s candidates still look certain to make it into the second round. So it’s still far from clear how the political situation in this part of France will look a week from now.

Nevertheless, it's clear that the far right - which had little support in this part of France just a decade ago - is surging by focusing on the cost of living crisis and a perceived rise in violent crime.

Image source, Reuters

The leader of National Rally, Jordan Bardella, has been speaking in Paris.

The French people had given rise "to hope without precedent in the country," he said, adding he was grateful for the high turnout.

The second round, next Sunday, will be the "most consequential" since the Fifth Republic was established in 1958, said Bardella.

He said the choice was now clear and that there were two avenues open to the country - "the worst path" with the left-wing coalition which presented an "existential peril", and the path led by the National Rally in coalition with some sections of Eric Ciotti's right-wing party the Republicans.

Bardella said he would be a prime minister who would be respectful of the president in a state of cohabitation - when the leading party in parliament is different from the president's party - but ready to stand his ground.

He also said he would be the prime minister of "of all French" people if the far right were to win an absolute majority in the second round on Sunday next week.

Image source, Reuters

Less than an hour after the end of voting in the first round, party heavyweights are already looking ahead to the second taking place next week.

With dozens of three-way races expected, the leaders are considering when to tactically withdraw third-placed candidates.

Jean-Luc Melenchon, who heads the hard-left France Unbowed party, has just said: "Nowhere will we allow the [far-right] National Rally to win."

No sign then of a switchback towards the centre.

President Emmanuel Macron called the snap vote, hoping the National Rally’s triumph in the European election three weeks ago would prove to be fleeting.

But the opposite appears to be true, with the far-right actually increasing its share of the vote yet again and now looking set to dominate the next parliament.

The big question is whether next Sunday’s second round of the election will allow Marine le Pen and her co-leader Jordan Bardella to get an outright majority – that is 289 seats – and thus govern with the legislature clearly behind them. Projections tonight range from 260 to 310.

So there is a still a lot to play before, and there are already calls - from the president himself and others - for centrists and left-wingers to vote tactically next Sunday in order to keep out RN candidates.

Image source, Reuters

The National Rally's Marine Le Pen has just addressed cheering supporters in her northern constituency of Henin-Beaumont.

"Democracy has spoken and the French have put the RN and its allies at the top, practically wiping out the Macron camp," she says.

She adds that people clearly want to "turn the page after seven years of scornful and corrosive rule" and asks people to vote for the RN again next Sunday in the second round.

"We need an absolute majority so that [RN leader] Jordan Bardella can be appointed prime minister in a week's time," she adds.

We can now bring you the 19:00 BST exit poll, conducted by Ipsos-Talan for France Télévisions and Radio France.

We expect more details to come throughout the evening. Stick with us as we bring you those, and more analysis from our correspondents in France.

Image source, .

Following the early exit polls just announced, French President Emmanuel Macron has just spoken with AFP news agency.

The French president has called for voters to rally behind "republican and democratic" candidates in the second round of the elections being held next Sunday.

Macron also welcomed the high voter turnout in today's first round.

Make no mistake, this is historic.

National Rally has never won the first round of a parliamentary election before. Three weeks ago it topped the vote in the European elections. Now, if confirmed, this result puts the party in pole position for next Sunday's crucial run-off vote.

But this election is about 577 constituencies and each one of them has its own political story. RN may win some of them outright tonight, and it may be ahead in most of the others.

And yet, the left-wing alliance has also done extremely well, and it's made up of four separate parties who've split the constituencies up between them.

So what happens tonight and in the coming days is what counts.

Will other party leaders from the centre and centre right call for voters to back the Socialists, the Greens and the Communists? Because if they do, this race has another seven days to run.

The champagne will be flowing at RN headquarters for now, but this isn't over.

And we can now bring you the first estimates of the results in the first round of the French parliamentary elections.

• National Rally: 34%

• New Popular Front: 28.1%
• French President Macron's centrist Ensemble alliance: 20.3%
• Republicans: 10.2%

These are from initial exit polls given by the publically owned France 2 TV channel.

Barring an exceptionally strong showing by the far-right National Rally, the final outcome of this election is guesswork.

A French parliamentary vote is not a single race but a collection of 577 contests.

Overall result mean little.

France's two-round election system throws up a host of imponderables and permutations.

Any candidate with a score of 12.5% of registered voters can go on to the run-off. The final outcome in each constituency will depend on whether third or fourth-place candidates decide to pull out.

Ultimately, the result hinges on who minority parties and candidates choose as the lesser of two evils among their rivals.

Expects intense horse trading between the two rounds.

Polls close in just under 15 minutes in the first round of France's parliamentary election.

Exit polls will come out almost instantly - we'll bring them to you on this page alongside analysis from our correspondents, so stay with us.

Image source, Getty Images

A few days ago, President Emmanuel Macron raised the spectre of "civil war" if either the far right or the hard left ended up running France.

Some have regarded the warning as self-serving hyperbole. But many in France appear to take it seriously. According to a poll published on Friday, 40% of French people fear the programme of the left-wing France Unbowed (LFI) could eventually lead to civil war; the figure for the far-right National Rally is 40%.

In anticipation of first-round results, shopfronts across the country have been boarded up to avoid being looted. The country is no stranger to political unrest: the damage from a wave of riots last year amounted to a €800m (£677m).

Whoever wins, Macron has said he will not resign as president. In a letter to the French published a week ago, he said he would stay on until his term ends in 2027.

However, if his party loses, and either National Rally or the New Popular Front win, that leaves almost three years of “cohabitation”, or power-sharing – meaning the president of one party heads the state and another party runs the government.

It’s happened before, with domestic policy in the hands of the prime minister and foreign and defence policy in the hands of the president.

If there is no absolute majority – a likely scenario – the president will need to negotiate with other players to put together a government and choose a prime minister.

This would leave the government in a shaky position and it may not survive long.

There are hundreds of regular National Rally supporters filing in to the venue here in Hénin-Beaumont, in north-eastern France, and there is certainly an air of expectation that the party will top the polls tonight.

It is a community centre that has been transformed into a venue for National Rally's post-results party. There are two giant screens, colourful lights ready to kick into action and high energy music pumping out incredibly loudly.

Dozens of TV cameras are trained on the podium where Marine Le Pen is expected to speak later.

Earlier on in the day she had promised her supporters outside her polling station that she would see them tonight.

When asked by the BBC whether she was confident of victory, she replied: "I am not allowed to comment before the closing of the polls."

However, she did also say: "I am a natural optimist."

Image source, Reuters

The elections could not come at a worse moment for the EU.

The European project has traditionally been powered by the "Franco-German motor".

But the engine has run out of steam in recent years. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who came to power in 2021, is a more lukewarm European than his predecessors. Mr Macron, a passionate Europhile, lost much of his clout along with his majority in 2022.

For EU enthusiasts, the news has gone from bad to worse this month. Germany's coalition took a drubbing in European elections, as did Mr Macron's party, while the nationalist far right made breakthroughs in both countries.

Now, France’s far-right National Rally (RN) appears poised to win these parliamentary polls. It has promised to end the primacy of European laws, a cornerstone of the EU project. And the RN is vying for pole position with a left-wing coalition dominated by the Eurosceptic France Unbowed.

The French part of Europe's hobbled engine appears about to stall at a time when the EU faces challenges from a war at its doorstep to migration and climate change.