Hello and

I'm in London, I'm in London,

this is Owen Bennett Jones

and I'm in London but we're going straight to France

because James Kumar-Sami is there for the

elections yes that's right oh and it is actually a pre-election day of silence here

in France cue the siren outside rallies, no campaigning allowed a day for voters and

candidates to contemplate tomorrow's choices in what is the decisive round of

the parliamentary election and those choices are big both for this

country and for the European Union where France plays such a leading role of

course now parliamentary elections here are often a bit of an afterthought they've

tended to confirm the results of a presidential vote that happens

usually at least just before them. These though are different. They were called unexpectedly

three years ahead of schedule by Emmanuel Macron after his centrist party was badly beaten

by Maureen Le Penh's far-right national rally in last month's European elections.

That result was repeated in the first of the two round contest last Sunday and tomorrow

there'll be hundreds of run-offs that will decide whether the National Rally, the former National

Front, a party long considered beyond the pale here, can win enough seats to actually form a government.

Well over the past week, candidates from the left wing alliance, a new one called the new

Popular Front and the Macron Centrists have been making packs turning what a should be

three-way into two-way contest tomorrow to try and squeeze the the radical rights

chance of an outright parliamentary majority. It needs 289 seats in the National Assembly for that.

...