A divided France braced Saturday for high-stakes parliamentary elections that could see the anti-immigrant and eurosceptic party of Marine Le Pen sweep to power in a historic first.

The candidates ended their frantic three-week campaigns at midnight Friday, with political activity banned until the first round of voting on Sunday.

On Saturday, voting begins in France's overseas territories that span the globe, with residents of the tiny archipelago of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, located off the coast of Canada, casting their ballots from 1000 GMT.

They will be followed by voters in France's islands in the Caribbean and the South American territory of French Guiana. Voting will later start in territories in the Pacific and then in the Indian Ocean before it gets underway on the mainland on Sunday.

Most polls show that Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN) is on course to win the largest number of seats in the 577-member National Assembly, parliament's lower house, although it remains unclear if the party will secure an outright majority.

A high turnout is predicted and final opinion polls have given the RN between 35 percent and 37 percent of the........

© International Business Times