Hundreds of millions of Europeans are voting to select 720 Members of the European Parliament, and rising support for the far right prompted Emmanuel Macron to call early elections in France. With polls now closed for European elections, it’s now becoming clear who the winners and losers are across the EU’s 27 Member States.
Italy’s leader Giorgia Meloni has cemented her role as a key Brussels power broker with an estimated 26-30% of the votes, while in France, President Emmanuel Macron has performed so badly he’s been pushed to call snap elections.
A first estimate of election results produced by the European Parliament suggests the Green and liberal Renew parties each losing around 20 MEPs each, potentially endangering the pro-European majority needed to back top officials and support EU laws.
The second projection, produced after all polls closed, shows the Green party taking just 52 MEPs, compared to 72 in March 2024.
Renew, spearheaded by Macron, fell from 102 seats to 80, the figures suggest, leading the President to take the surprising move of dissolving the country’s National Assembly.
That collapse is accompanied by rising support for the extreme parties, even if some of those have not yet been allocated to political groups.
In France, projections suggest the far-right National Rally (RN) party, has secured a whopping 31.5% of the votes — more than twice the number gained by Macron, who released a message on Twitter.
“France needs a clear majority to operate in calm and and concord,” Macron said. “I’ve understood your message, your preoccupations, and I won’t leave them without a response.”
The far-right FPÖ is also predicted to top the poll in Austria, doubling its number of MEPs to six after gaining 27% of votes, according to a poll by the public broadcaster ORF.
Second place is a tight battle between the centre-right ÖVP, with five MEPs (down from seven) and 23.5%, and the socialists of SPÖ, with also five MEPs and 23% of votes.
In Germany, the Christian-Democrat CDU and CSU party is projected to get just about 30% of the vote, similar to 29% in 2019, followed by the far-right Alternative for Germany in second place with 16.5%, up from 11% in 2019. The Social-Democrats of Chancellor Olaf Scholz are following with 14%, and the Greens with 12%. Turnout is at 64%.
Exit polls suggest Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, which belongs to the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists grouping, has performed much better than the centre-left Democratic Party opposition, whose support is estimated at 21-25%.
Forza Italia and Lega, two other parties in Meloni’s governing coalition, don’t appear to have fared so well, with between 8 and 10.5% apiece.
Those rightward trends are confirmed in Spain, where Vox is expected to increase its representation by two to three MEPs, while newcomers “The Party Is Over”, also identified as far-right populist, will gain their first ever two or three MEPs, exit polls suggest.