Marine Le Pen said her far right National Rally has "almost wiped out" President Emmanuel Macron as the exit polls show the party leads the first round of snap legislative elections to take place in France. President Macron called a surprise vote when his centrist alliance was beaten in the European elections by France’s National Rally party at the beginning of this month.
The first round of elections attracted a significant number of French voters with an unusually high turnout of 59% reported earlier with three hours left to go."This is the highest level since the 1986 legislative elections," Mathieu Gallard, research director at the Ipsos polling institute, said.At the same stage in the first round of the 2022 legislative elections, turnout was recorded as 39.42%.