BRUSSELS: The far-right was seen scoring big gains in Germany and France in EU elections, opinion polls showed, joining the Netherlands in offering the first signs that an expected rightwards shift in the European Parliament is under way.
In France, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party won around 32% of the votes, a 10 point increase on the last EU election in 2019 and some 17 points ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s party, according to the first exit polls.
More mainstream conservatives were also forecast to do well across Europe, with early estimates for both groups in line with an expected broader shift in the European Parliament which covers a bloc of 450 million citizens. All this means the new European Parliament is likely to be cooler on policies to address climate change while eager to support measures to limit immigration to the EU. The parliament could also be more fragmented, which would make adopting any measure trickier and slower as the EU confronts challenges including a hostile Russia and increased industrial rivalry from China and the US.
Early exit polls showed that parties grouped in the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) were projected to remain the largest bloc across five countries, including Germany and Greece. That would put the EPP’s candidate to head the European Commission, incumbent Ursula von der Leyen of Germany, in pole position for a second term.
In Germany, the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) took second place behind conservative CDU/CSU alliance’s 29.6% with 16.5% of the vote, up from 11% in 2019, according to an exit poll published by public broadcaster ARD. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) crashed to their worst-ever result in European Parliament elections, falling to third place. According to projections, it received around 14% of the vote, below the 15.8% they managed in 2019.
Meanwhile, in Austria, the far-right Freedom Party is the likely winner. It is the first time the group has topped a nationwide ballot in the Alpine country. In the Netherlands, exit polls showed nationalist Geert Wilders’ anti-immigration party was set to win seven of the 29 Dutch seats in the EU assembly, just one short of the combined seats of a Socialist Democrat-Greens alliance.