Hello, I'm Anna Janna Gadgill. Voting in France is underway in the first round of parliamentary elections. The election, called to widespread surprise by President Emmanuel Macron, has thrown French politics into disarray. Support for the anti-immigration and euroskeptic National Rally Party has surged despite President Macron's pledges to stop its rise. The far-right National Rally is widely expected to come in first place in the 577 member National Assembly, Parliament's the lower House, but it remains unclear if the party will secure an outright majority. The shape of the new Parliament will only become clear after the second round of voting on July the seventh. Well, let's have a look at some live pictures from Paris with voters arriving at the polls this morning. It's nine o'clock in Paris. Voting began an hour ago. Now, we can also speak to Chris Bockman, our reporter who's at a polling station in Toulouse in the south of France. Chris, has it been a steady stream of voters there since you arrived at eight o'clock?

It started with a lot of people at the top of the hour, and then, of course, it's now slowed down. But we expect there will be a lot of people. There's a lot of evidence that with proxy voting, that there's going to be a big turn up for this election because it is so important. We've talked about this many times in the past about the far-right gaining gaining ground, but this time it really could be on the verge of taking power here. As you mentioned, there's so many issues at stake. They've already They said that in the last few days, if they take power, people with dual nationality won't be able to have certain positions in government. That's already caused a bit of a storm. They also said that the French President, who normally has the final say on foreign policy, well, that's no longer the case as well. In terms of who runs the military, well, the far-right says they do. There's going to be a big constitutional battle very quickly if the far-right gets an absolute majority. Why am I introduced? Because it's so important The outside Paris is really where the extremes are.

Paris usually goes with a moderate center, but it's outside where the far right does extremely well in the south and in parts of the east. Of course, the far left also does very well in urban areas as well. This is very much what the far left has a stronghold. But as you move further away from the city center, it's where you get the far right surging so much in the past decade. So these are crucial moments, and we really will get a good idea by this evening on where we are in of extremes, as whether Macron's gamble, pulled off, or he recklessly put the country into jeopardy for the next few years.

You talk about the surge in favor of the far right. How strong could that surge prove to be? And will this ultimately be seen as a reckless move by Emmanuel Macron.

Indeed. Well, he did this decision to have the Snap election just three weeks ago after the European elections, where the far right had between 35 and 40% of the vote. I've been talking to a lot of people, obviously, in the past few weeks, and a lot said, They're not this time going to vote for Macron, even if they don't support him, to keep the far right or the far left out. He said, This time, they're going to go and vote with their heart, not with their brain. Basically, the far right could do extremely well. Everyone I've been talking to says that there's a good chance they will be voting for Macron this time for a lot of different reasons. He's lost support. He's considered arrogant, vertical form of power, not listening to them. We have the same issues as we do in a lot of places in Europe, cost of living crisis, inflation, difficult to get on the housing ladder, illegal immigration, and a fear of crime, and not enough being done about all those issues. Those are the key issues at stake. However, also because of the Snap election, the different alliances had to come up with a manifesto policy in the space of two weeks.

A lot of people, economists, down here, we have one of the world's leading economists, who went on a Nobel Prize for economics, says that the far left and the far right have economic policies that make no sense. I can give you two examples. One, the far left says that the retirement age will be reduced from 64 to 60. Most countries in Europe now are going towards 65 to 67. On the far right, they're talking about massive reductions in VAT on energy bills to help people pay their bills. These cost billions and billions, and the commoners say neither of them add up.