hello and welcome if you re watching in the uk or around the world. polling stations have opened across france, in the final round of voting for parliamentary elections. at stake is control of the five hundred and seventy seven seat national assembly, where the liberal party founded by president emmanuel macron has held sway for the last five years. but, president macron s candidates are facing strong opposition in the form of an alliance of left wing parties. our paris correspondent hugh schofield told me more about battle facing macron s party. the big challenge, the surprising challenge, not from the far right, this time, which he faced in the presidential election, but from the left, this coalition which has been created by the force of will of one man, that isjean luc melenchon, the man who came third in the presidential election, a character from the far left of french politics, but by dint of personality and technical genius, if you like, has got all the left or most o
that isjean luc melenchon, the man who came third in the presidential election, a character from the far left of french politics, but by dint of personality and technical genius, if you like, has got all the left or most of it into his cabinet and persuaded the very demoralised socialists and communists and greens to fly under his banner, basically, and together, as a group, they stand to do extremely well in these parliamentary elections and pose a real challenge to president maduro on. a real challenge to president macron. it does not look as if this new left wing coalition will win a majority, but they will, it looks like, get 200, maybe 200 seats in parliament, which would make it easily the main force of opposition to macron. macron s party looks set, probably, to win the selection, but not with anything like the panache that he was hoping for.