France and Germany swing sharply to the right in EU elections

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Far-right parties have made significant gains in the EU elections, performing well in Germany and comfortably winning the vote in France, prompting Emmanuel Macron to call a snap parliamentary election.

An initial projection by the European parliament suggested that far-right and hard-right groups were on course to win almost a quarter of the seats in the next parliament, up from a fifth in 2019.

The French president shocked his allies on Sunday by calling a snap election for the National Assembly after exit polls gave France’s Rassemblement National party 33 per cent of the vote, more than double the vote share of Macron’s centrist alliance.

“I’ve decided to give you back the choice,” Macron said in an address from the Elysée palace.

As well as delivering a stinging blow to the domestic standing of the French president and Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, the gains are expected to help tilt the European parliament towards a more anti-immigration and anti-green stance.

The exit polls put the centre-right European People’s party on track to win 181 seats, with the Socialists and Democrats in second place with 135 seats and the liberal Renew group on 82 seats, holding on to third. The Greens are set to be the biggest losers falling from 71 seats in 2019 to 53, the estimates show.

The French RN party led by Marine Le Pen was expected to have come first with around a third of the vote, according to exit polls on Sunday, in a stinging rebuke to the centrist alliance of President Emmanuel Macron, which secured around 15 per cent of the vote.

“This result is emphatic. Our countrymen have expressed a desire for change and a path for the future,” said Jordan Bardella, who led the RN’s campaign list.

In Germany, the three parties in Scholz’s coalition were all overtaken by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which came in second, behind the conservative CDU-CSU opposition. Ultraconservative and nationalist parties also won or made significant gains in Austria, Cyprus, Germany, Greece and the Netherlands, the exit polls showed.

“Kiss goodbye to the European Green Deal,” said Simon Hix, politics professor at the European University Institute in Florence, referring to the ambitious plan to hit net zero emissions by 2050.

He said the centre right EPP of European commission president Ursula von der Leyen had become even more powerful, since it could work with parties to its left or right.

But the surge, at the expense of liberal and Green parties, would complicate von der Leyen’s bid for a second term as head of the EU’s executive.

The AfD defied recent scandals to take second place in Germany with 16.4 per cent of the vote. It was one of the AfD’s best results in a nationwide election, although lower than the 22 per cent share polls suggested in January.

“This is a super result . . . a record result,” said party co-leader Tino Chrupalla. “Our voters remained loyal to us and we beat the party of the chancellor, the Greens and the liberals.”

Its success came despite a flurry of negative headlines, many of them concerning its lead candidate in the election, Maximilian Krah. His staffer was arrested on suspicion of spying for China, and he sparked outrage by downplaying the crimes of the SS. The number two on the AfD’s list is meanwhile being investigated for corruption.

The result was a disaster for the three parties in Scholz’s fragile coalition — the Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and the liberal FDP. The Greens saw their share of the vote slump by more than 8 percentage points while the SPD garnered just 14 per cent — its worst-ever result in a nationwide vote.

The opposition centre-right CDU-CSU won the election with 29 seats, the SPD won just 14, the Greens 12 and the FDP 5.

In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ far-right Freedom party (PVV) won 7 seats, up from 1 last time, although that gave it slightly fewer seats than a Labour/Green party alliance.

The EPP performed strongly in Germany, Spain, Greece and some other countries, the data forecast.

“We are once again the strongest force in Germany,” von der Leyen said in response to the early projections from her home country. “Today we celebrate. From tomorrow we will continue working.”

To secure a second term as commission president, von der Leyen needs a majority of the 720-seat parliament to back her. Final results are expected early on Monday.

Additional reporting by Laura Dubois in Brussels

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