It is a political gamble that looks to be going badly wrong for French President Emmanuel Macron. On Sunday, millions of voters went to the polls in the first round of a snap general election called by the French leader after a disastrous showing by his centrist alliance in June’s European Parliament elections.

Opinion polls strongly suggested that France’s main far-right party, the Eurosceptic and anti-immigration National Rally, would perform well, and so it proved in the first round as it emerged as the front-runner with about 34 per cent of the vote.

That result has been a political earthquake for France. For the first time, a party from the hard right is within touching distance of securing an absolute majority in France’s 577-seat National Assembly.

In this episode of the Year of Elections podcast, host Declan McVeigh explores how France got here, and looks at the possible scenarios in the second round of voting on July 7 with The National’s correspondent in Brussels, Sunniva Rose, and French affairs columnist Colin Randall.