European Elections Data, Visualised
Millions of people across the EU are electing a new European Parliament, in a vote likely to reflect a shift in the Continent’s political balance.
French far right beats Macron in EU election
Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally scored a first-place finish in the EU election in France, besting President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance list, according to early projections of the French vote — a major victory for populist, Euroskeptic forces.
National Rally, a rebranding of Le Pen’s National Front party, scored about 24 percent of the vote, compared to roughly 22.5 percent for Macron’s centrist-liberal party, according to two initial projections.
National Rally was expected to be at the forefront of a nationalist-populist wave across Europe, in which far-right forces were projected to capture as much as one third of seats in the European Parliament. Big gains were also expected for Matteo Salvini’s far-right League in Italy.
In Germany, early results showed the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in fourth place with 10 seats, a gain of three seats compared to 2014.
The AfD’s gains came as Germany’s Social Democrats suffered a collapse at the polls, losing a projected 11 seats. That shortfall, in the EU’s largest country, was expected to dash any center-left hopes of overtaking the centre-right European People’s Party as the biggest group in the European Parliament.
UK projections show Brexit Party followed by Labour Lib Dems third.
