European elections results... and French bad news

 

Exhausting evening here, after a lovely day...

I love voting, but apparently not for the same reasons as my fellow French citizens.

Exit polls indicate far-right surge

• Preliminary results are due late Sunday, with exit polls putting far-right parties first in Austria and second in Germany

• While centrist parties are predicted to keep most of the legislature's 720 seats, polls suggest they will be weakened by a stronger far right pushing the bloc towards ultraconservatism.

• In Germany, exit polls pointed to a stinging defeat for Chancellor Olaf Scholz, with all three parties in his troubled coalition behind the conservatives and the far right, exit polls showed.

• On 14 percent, Scholz's Social Democrats trailed the Alternative for Germany at between 16 and 16.5 percent, and well behind the conservative CDU-CSU bloc's 29.5 percent.

• Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally is predicted to score about 30 percent, double the voting intentions for President Emmanuel Macron's liberal Renaissance party.

• In Italy the far-right ruling Brothers of Italy party of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was expected to come out on top.

French president dissolves parliament after far-right National Rally's EU elections victory 

French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday announced he was dissolving parliament and called snap legislative elections after the far-right trounced his centrist alliance in EU polls.

The first round of elections for the lower house National Assembly will take place on 30 June, with the second round on 7 July.

Von der Leyen vows to build 'bastion against extremes' 

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Sunday to build a "bastion against extremes" in the new EU parliament, where vote projections show her centre-right group in first place. 

"We will build a bastion against the extremes from the left and from the right," she told members of her European People's Party (EPP) in Brussels. 

"No majority can be formed without EPP," she said. "We will stop them. This is for sure."

French far-right leader Le Pen welcomes elections 

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen on Sunday welcomed President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to dissolve the National Assembly and announce new parliamentary elections later this month. “We are ready to take over the power if the French give us their trust in the upcoming national elections,” she said during a rally.