Far right ekes gains in EU elections, rocks France

French President Emmanuel Macron calls snap election

French President Emmanuel Macron dissolved Parliament and called for surprise snap elections

(Image credit: Ludovic Marin / AFP via Getty Images)

published 10 June 2024

What happened

Far-right parties gained seats in European Parliament elections held in 27 countries, Green parties lost ground and the main center-right and center-left parties won the most votes, according to exit polls and preliminary results released Sunday.

The far right saw its biggest gains in Germany, where the scandal-plagued Alternative for Germany (AfD) party edged past Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats to take second place, and France, where Marine Le Pen's National Rally party crushed Emmanuel Macron's pro-business Renew party so badly, Macron dissolved Parliament and called surprise snap elections.

"The center is holding," European Commission President Ursula von Der Leyen said Sunday night. She called her center-right coalition, projected to win a plurality of 184 seats in the 720-seat Parliament, an "anchor of stability" and urged the "parties of the center" to govern together. The center-left Social Democrats won 139 seats, while Renew took third with 79 seats.

"For all the drama in Berlin and especially Paris, the projections of a broader hard-right takeover of the EU" failed to materialize, The Economist said. And in many countries the far right "performed short of expectations." Still, since the last elections in 2019, the "once-fringe hard-right parties have entered the political mainstream in Europe," The Washington Post said.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.