Today France is closer than it's ever been in its modern history to being governed by the far right.

Parliamentary elections that began on Sunday are the country's most consequential in decades

and will have implications

across Europe and the United States.

Nick Schifren is here with that story, Nick.

I'm not, the far right national rally

received more than 10 million votes,

double the number it has ever received before.

Its longtime leader, Maureen Le Pen, celebrated last night.

It's a form of great emancipation for the people. They're taking back their freedom.

They are determined to defend themselves against political powers that have hurt them, that

weakened them, that ruined them.

But France's parliamentary elections are two rounds, and today Lippen's opponents,

the new popular front, a left-wing coalition and the party of French President Emmanuel McCroll,

could adjust their candidates

and still have the possibility of blocking France's first far right government

since World War II.

For more on this, we turn to Celia Belen, Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Celia Belen, thank you very much. Welcome to the news hour. Why did the national rally do so well?

It was a foregone conclusion, you know, when Emmanuel Macron, President Macron decided

to call for a snap election, the national rally had just come out of a great victory from its European elections.

The reality is that the National Rally has been gaining strength very much over the past two years mostly because a larger part of France is agreeing on the substance with them and then an even larger part of France probably is tired with this government and President

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