In France, there are signs of a far-reaching shift in power in the National Assembly.

According to the latest polls, the new left-wing alliance NUPES, made up of the Left Party, Greens, Socialists and Communists, is on a par with the government camp, whose parties are running under the name Ensemble (Together).

More than 48 million French people are called upon today to choose the 577 deputies of the National Assembly.

Interest in the general election seven weeks after the decision in the presidential election is low.

Pollsters predicted a negative record turnout.

Voter turnout was 18.4 percent by midday, almost a percentage point lower than five years ago at the same time.

Michael Wiegel

Political correspondent based in Paris.

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The first ballot decides who can qualify for the second round next Sunday.

Hundreds of duels between candidates from the left alliance and the government camp were expected.

It was with excitement how the candidates of the right-wing party The Republicans (LR) fared.

In the past five years, LR has been the strongest opposition faction, and it is certain that they will lose this position.

But the LR deputies could have a key position in the new parliament should the government camp fail to win an absolute majority of seats in parliament.

Several ministers in the new Macron government are running in difficult constituencies and have to assert themselves against candidates from the left alliance.

President Macron has announced that election losers will have to resign from the government cabinet.

Mélenchon plans to retire at 60

The election campaign went like a long-distance duel between Macron and the failed left-wing presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

The 70-year-old left-wing spokesman will not be running himself, but will demand the post of prime minister if the left-wing alliance achieves a majority.

He has committed the Socialists and Greens to a program of disobedience to the EU.

Against Macron's plans to raise the retirement age to 65, Mélenchon has countered the promise of a return to retirement at 60.

According to calculations by the Institut Montaigne think tank, the left-wing alliance's total additional expenditures amount to 300 billion euros.

"The proposals of the left-wing alliance NUPES threaten to worsen the situation instead of improving it," warn Jean Tirole, Nobel laureate in economics, and Olivier Blanchard, the long-time chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, in an opinion piece in the Journal du Dimanche on Sunday.

Mélenchon's foreign policy course in the past has been shaped by sympathy for Vladimir Putin.

In the meantime he has condemned the Russian war crimes, but continues to advertise a withdrawal from NATO and a unilateral “peace policy”.

The NATO rejection is one of the reasons why President Macron traveled to a NATO base in Romania on Tuesday to visit the 500 soldiers stationed there.

The trip is also about committing to the defense alliance.

The mood between Macron and American President Joe Biden has improved again since the rift over the AUKUS defense alliance.

The conflict with Australia over the canceled submarine sale was settled after the change of government in Canberra.

The French Naval Group receives a compensation payment of 555 million euros as compensation for the termination of the submarine contract.

President Macron has invited the new Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to Paris.

With this, Macron Mélenchon takes the wind out of his sails.

Mélenchon had demanded that they no longer follow the USA in their "Indo-Pacific adventures".

He said China posed "zero danger" to France.