President Emmanuel Macron surprised the country by holding the referendum after Marine Le Pen's National Rally (RN) trounced his centrist alliance in European elections earlier this month. Her eurosceptic, anti-immigrant party was once viewed as a pariah, but it is now closer to power than ever.
French voters voted on Sunday in the first round of an emergency parliamentary election that may usher in the country's first far-right administration since World War II, a potentially seismic upheaval at the heart of the European Union.
Polls will open at 0600 GMT, close at 1600 GMT in small towns and cities, and 1800 GMT in larger cities, when the first exit polls for the night and seat predictions for the pivotal second round a week later are expected.
However, the election method can make it difficult to anticipate the actual allocation of seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, and the ultimate result will not be known until voting concludes on July 7.
"We are going to win an absolute majority," said Le Pen in a newspaper interview on Wednesday, predicting that her protégé, 28-year-old Jordan Bardella would be prime minister. Her party has a high-spending economic programme and seeks to reduce immigration.
If the RN wins an absolute majority, French diplomacy may face unprecedented volatility, with Macron - who has stated that he would continue to serve as president until the end of his term in 2027 - and Bardella vying for the right to speak for France.
France has experienced three periods of "cohabitation" - when the president and cabinet come from opposing political factions - in its postwar history, but none with such diametrically opposed worldviews battling at the top of the state.
Ardella has already suggested that he would fight Macron on global problems. France might go from being a pillar of the EU to a thorn in its side, seeking a reduction in the French contribution to the EU budget, battling with Brussels over European Commission posts, and undermining Macron's proposals for stronger EU unity and aggressiveness on defense.
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A convincing victory for the RN would also raise questions about France's position on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Le Pen has a history of pro-Russian sympathies, and while the party today claims to support Ukraine's defence against Russian invaders, it has also established red lines, such as refusing to deploy long-range weapons.
'SPLIT VOTE FAVOURS RN'
According to opinion surveys, the RN has a clear lead of 33-36% of the public vote, followed by a hurriedly constructed left-wing coalition, the New public Front, in second place with 28-31% and Macron's centrist alliance in third with 20-23%.
The New Popular Front consists of a diverse spectrum of groups, from the moderate center-left to the hard-left, eurosceptic, anti-NATO party France Unbowed, led by one of Macron's most vehement opponents, Jean-Luc Melenchon.
Because of the way elections function, it is difficult to anticipate how poll numbers will convert into seats in the National Assembly, according to Vincent Martigny, a political science professor at the University of Nice and the Ecole Polytechnique.
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Candidates may be elected in the first round if they receive an absolute majority of votes in their district, although this is unusual. Most constituencies will require a second round that includes all candidates who garnered votes from at least 12.5% of registered voters in the first round. The top scorer wins.
"If you have a very high level of participation you might have a third or fourth party that is getting into the struggle. So then of course there's a risk of split voting and we know that the split vote favours the National Rally," said Martigny.
For decades, as the far right steadily gained popularity, voters and parties who did not support it would unite against it whenever it edged closer to national power, but that may not hold true this time.
Martigny said no one knew whether Macron's supporters would contemplate pulling out of the second round to offer left-wing challengers a chance of defeating the RN, or vice versa.
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Le Pen and Bardella have worked to improve their party's image in the mainstream, such as by condemning antisemitism. Le Pen's father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder and long-time leader of the RN's precursor, has a history of explicitly antisemitic remarks.
However, opponents argue that the RN's courtship of Jews is only a front to avoid racism allegations while stigmatising Muslims and immigrants on a daily basis.