PARIS, July 7. /TASS/. The second round of early elections to the National Assembly (lower house of parliament) has begun in the European part of France.

Voting will last from 08:00 a.m. to 06:00 p.m. local time [06:00 a.m. - 04:00 p.m. GMT]. In a number of large cities - Paris, Toulouse, Lyon, Bordeaux, Montpellier and Marseille - voters will be able to vote until 08:00 p.m. local time [06:00 p.m. GMT].

In the overseas departments, voting began on Saturday and in most of them it has already ended or is coming to an end, as in the case of New Caledonia.

Even in the first round, the Franch Interior Ministry noted the highest voter turnout since 1997 at 66.7%, while in the second round, according to the forecast of the French Institute of Public Opinion (Ifop), it could be even higher (69%). A few days before the opening of polling stations, 460,000 French people living abroad voted via the Internet, which is a record for this type of voting. Also, according to the Interior Ministry, the record for the number of requests for proxy voting set in the first round has been broken again: in the second round, 3.2 million citizens of the republic plan to cast their votes through friends or relatives.

The main struggle for 577 seats in the National Assembly took place between the centrist presidential coalition, the right-wing National Rally and the left-wing New Popular Front.

According to the latest Ifop poll, National Rally may get between 170 and 210 seats in the lower house, while a party needs 289 seats to achieve an absolute majority. The left-wing New Popular Front alliance and its allies may get between 155 and 185 seats, while the presidential coalition Together for the Republic may get between 120 and 150. There are 577 deputies in the National Assembly.