ANKARA

A 12-hour-long voting process ended in France on Sunday where over 49 million registered voters cast their ballots in the snap parliamentary elections. 

Polling stations opened at 8 a.m. (0600GMT) across the country.

Over 49 million registered voters headed to the polling stations to elect 577 members of the National Assembly, the lower chamber of parliament, for a five-year term.

The turnout in the legislative elections in France was 59.39% at 5 p.m. (1500GMT), according to the Interior Ministry.

This turnout is much higher than that in the 2022 elections at the same hour, which was 39.42%.

French President Emmanuel Macron dissolved parliament and announced snap elections after the far-right National Rally (RN) swept more than 31% of the vote in the European Parliament elections on June 9, defeating his centrist bloc.

National parliamentary elections will be held in two rounds, with the second to take place on July 7.