The mayor of Paris says she is having "difficulty understanding" why President Macron chose to call parliamentary elections just weeks before the city hosts the Olympic Games.

The ballot will take place across two rounds on 30 June and 7 July, while the Olympics will get under way on 26 July, the BBC reported. 

Anne Hidalgo - a member of the Socialist Party, which opposes Macron - describes the president's decision as "another move I am having difficulty understanding".

"Like a lot of people I was stunned to hear the president decide to do a dissolution," she says. "A dissolution just before the Games, it's really something that is extremely unsettling."

However, the president of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, says France's political leaders are united in their support of the games, and he has seen "no indication whatsoever that this unity will break now".

"France is used to holding elections. They will do it one more time. There will be a new government and everyone will support the Olympics," he says.