France has held the second round of a historic election that is expected to give a majority to Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) party in the parliament.
The French people went to the polls on Sunday to determine which group had the most votes, representing the biggest political force in the divided parliament.
The RN party dominated the first round of the legislative elections.
Media reports indicated a record-breaking turnout in the second and decisive round.
French citizens are casting their votes in the snap elections after President Emmanuel Macron's centrist alliance suffered a heavy defeat in the first round.
Of a total number of 577 seats, 501 vacant seats are up for grabs in the second round.
RN won last Sunday's first round with about a third of the votes.
Left-wing and centrist parties have since consolidated forces to stop RN from gaining parliamentary majority.
By midday in France, 26.6 percent of voters had cast their ballots. It is the highest turnout since 1981.
Meanwhile, France is in an anxious mood. Thirty-thousand police officers have been deployed to maintain law and order in case a potential electoral earthquake upsets the French political landscape.
"France is on the cusp of a seismic political shift," said analysts at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), warning that even if Macron controlled the government after the election he would face "legislative gridlocks".
This would weaken "France's voice on the European and international stage".
Macron called the snap elections three years ahead of time after his forces were beaten in June's European parliament vote, a gamble he made which seems to have lost. Instead, far-right leader Marine Le Pen's RN came top in the June 30 first round and is on course to repeat the feat in Sunday's runoff races.
French minorities, especially Muslims, are watching the elections with more anxiety than others.
The RN has been at the forefront of fueling violence against the country’s Muslim community.
Marine's father Jean-Marie, was known for his anti-immigration stance, infamously calling for a ban on building mosques in France.
Despite his daughter’s efforts to somewhat conceal RN's extremist ideology, she caused a scandal by calling for a complete ban on the Islamic headscarf and comparing Muslims praying outside mosques to the Nazi occupation of France during World War II.
Jordan Bardella, her protégé, who aims to become France’s next prime minister, has also provoked Islamophobic incidents, insulting Muslim mayors and calling the Hijab a "tool of discrimination."
Discriminative anti-Muslim bills such as the Abaya ban, the so-called separatism law, and recent immigration measures, which have deeply affected the Muslim community and other minorities in France, were passed under Macron’s Centrist government.
Due to the prevalent Islamophobic and racist climate presently in France, Muslims across the country fear the conditions will get exacerbated with the advent of the RN to parliament, and even more exacerbated after the RN’s possible achievement in gaining a parliamentary majority.