First round of French legislative elections kicks off

PARIS -- The first round of the 2022 French legislative elections kicked off Sunday in Metropolitan France (the region of the country geographically in Europe) for voters to elect 577 members for the National Assembly.

According to the Interior Ministry, about 6,300 candidates from 20 political parties will compete for seats in the National Assembly. The winning party needs 289 seats to obtain an absolute majority.

If a candidate scores an absolute majority in the first round -- more than 50 percent of the vote and a turnout rate of no less than 25 percent -- he or she is elected without needing a second round.

Those candidates who win the support of at least 12.5 percent of registered voters in the first round can advance to the second round on June 19.

Polling booths will be open from 8 am until 6 pm on both election days. In major cities, such as Paris, Lyon or Marseille, they will close at 8 p.m.

Each deputy is elected in a constituency, of which Metropolitan France has 539 and the overseas territories 27. A further 11 deputies will represent French nationals living abroad.

The deputies are directly elected for a term of five years.

The elections will be fought between President Emmanuel Macron's centrist alliance Ensemble, a recently formed left-wing alliance dubbed NUPES (la Nouvelle Union Populaire Ecologique et Sociale) and led by Jean-Luc Melenchon, who finished in third place in this April's presidential elections, and the right-wing party Les Republicains, as well as the far-right parties Rassemblement National and "Reconquete," led by former presidential candidates Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour, respectively.

The preliminary election results are scheduled to be announced after 8 p.m. local time (1800 GMT). But due to the possible low turnout rate, few deputies are expected to be elected in the first round.