EU elections 2024 live: Macron says France needs ‘clear majority’ after calling snap elections following far-right surge | European elections

Reaction to Emmanuel Macron’s shock election announcement continues to roll in.

Celine Bracq, director general of the Odoxa polling agency, told the AFP news agency it was a “poker move” at a time when there is a “strong desire on the part of the French to punish the president”.

It’s something extremely risky. In all likelihood, the National Rally, in the wake of the European elections, could have a majority in the National Assembly and why not an absolute majority?”

Macron could be seeking to “trap” the RN with his sudden election announcement, says Luc Rouban, political scientist at Sciences Po in Paris, arguing the party could have trouble mustering quality candidates to challenge for the 577 seats in the National Assembly.

Mujtaba Rahman, managing director for Europe at Eurasia Group, says there is a serious risk of “cohabitation” – the scenario in which a president and prime minister from opposing political parties have to find a way to run the country together.

The most likely outcome is more fragmentation, more deadlock and chaos. A complete paralysis.”

Analysts say the tumult in France comes at a critical moment, as attention is turning to the country’s 2027 presidential vote, where Macron cannot stand again and National Rally (RN) figurehead Marine Le Pen believes she has her best-ever chance of winning the Élysée Palace.

The leader of Spain’s conservative People’s party (PP) has hailed the dawn of a new “political cycle” after his party squeaked past the governing socialists to finish first in the European elections.

The PP took 22 seats last night, while the Spanish Socialist Workers party (PSOE) took 20, with the far-right Vox party finishing third with six seats, up two from 2019.

Another far-right faction – Se Acabó la Fiesta (The Party’s Over) – made an emphatic debut, winning three seats, the same number as the PSOE’s coalition partners in the leftwing Sumar platform.

Podemos, once seen as a party that could eclipse the PSOE, saw its seat count drop from six seats to just two. Ahora Repúblicas, a coalition of regional nationalist parties including groupings from Catalonia and the Basque Country, won three seats.

The PP leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo – who had sought to make the elections a referendum on the government of PSOE prime minister, Pedro Sánchez – welcomed the results and noted his party had taken 700,000 more votes than the socialists.

We’re seeing a new political cycle. We’re faced with a new political responsibility, which we accept humbly and with a sense of statesmanship. It’s obvious that walls have lost and we’ll once again build bridges instead. It’s obvious that the discourse of fear hasn’t won.”

Sánchez congratulated the PP but said Sunday’s results showed that his party was “the only govening option capable of confronting the far-right wave that is sweeping Europe and Spain”.

The Vox leader, Santiago Abascal, reacted to the results by urging Sánchez “to do what’s been done in France and Belgium and dissolve parliament and call elections so Spaniards can vote”.

Ahead of the vote, political and public attention had been focused on a saga embroiling the prime minister’s wife, Begoña Gómez, who is being investigated over allegations of corruption and influence-peddling – allegations that Sánchez has dismissed as politically motivated and totally baseless.

However, his opponents had used the issue to ramp up pressure on Sánchez, whom they accuse of being self-serving, hypocritical and hellbent on retaining power.

In the aftermath of last year’s inconclusive general election, Sánchez managed to secure another term by performing a U-turn and promising Catalan pro-independence parties a controversial and divisive amnesty law in return for their support in returning him to office.

France will go to the polls to vote for the new National Assembly on 30 June, with a second round on 7 July, giving Macron’s party just three weeks to make up ground on the RN in a short but intense burst of campaigning before France hosts the Paris Olympics in July and August.

In a best-case scenario for Macron, his centrist alliance would recover the absolute majority it lost in 2022 legislative elections and give new impetus to the remaining three years of his presidential mandate.

The nightmare outcome for him would be the RN winning a majority. That would probably see its leader Jordan Bardella, a protege of Le Pen, become prime minister in an uncomfortable “cohabitation” with Macron.

A middle scenario, analysts say, would be an anti-extremism coalition between Macron’s centrists and the traditional right-wing Republicans or even left-wing Socialists.

Speaking to the AFP news agency, the chief of Macron’s Renaissance and foreign minister Stephane Sejourne gave an indication of how the campaign could play out.

He said the party would not challenge outgoing MPs from the traditional left and right for their seats if they were prepared to “invest in a clear project” around the presidential majority.

Leaders of left-wing parties called on their camp to unite to face the RN challenge.

France’s snap election explained

Jon Henley

In a shock move, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has called a snap parliamentary election that will be held within the next 30 days. What happened exactly, why – and what might come next?

What were Macron’s reasons?

The president said the decision was a “serious and heavy” one, but that he could not resign himself to the fact that “far-right parties … are progressing everywhere on the continent”.

After his centrist coalition lost its parliamentary majority in the 2022 elections, Macron was resorted to pushing through legislation without a vote in the assembly, using a controversial constitutional tool known as 49/3.

Sunday’s dramatic move, however, is a huge gamble: Macron’s party could suffer yet more losses. However, most analysts predict that while the far-right party may emerge with more MPs, it will probably not win enough seats to give it a majority either – meaning the next parliament may be even messier and more ineffective than the current one.

It could be that he is looking at a neutralising “cohabitation effect”. If Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) were to score well and, for example, the party’s president, Jordan Bardella, were offered the job of prime minister, two and a half years in government may be just enough time to render the far right unpopular too.

How have National Rally responded?

Bardella was the first to urge Macron to call snap legislative elections, telling supporters after the projections were announced that French voters had “expressed a desire for change”. The country has “given its verdict and there is no appeal”, he said.

Le Pen, the party’s figurehead and presidential candidate, said she could “only welcome this decision, which is in keeping with the logic of the institutions of the Fifth Republic”. She said the party was “ready to take power if the French people have confidence in us in these forthcoming legislative elections”.

Preliminary results show that hard-right parties finished first in France, Italy and Austria and came second in Germany and the Netherlands, although centrist mainstream parties will probably keep an overall majority in the European parliament.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, whose centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) scored top place in the EU parliament, said she would “build a bastion against the extremes from the left and from the right.”

There remains a majority in the centre for a strong Europe and that is crucial for stability. In other words the centre is holding.”

Socialists won the largest share of the vote in Malta, Romania and Sweden, helping the centre-left to retain its position as the parliament’s second-largest group, albeit far weaker than the 1990s, when it led many more governments.

The EPP, Socialists and Democrats, the centrist Renew group and the Greens were on course for 462 of the 720 seats, a 64.1% share, compared with their 69.2% share in the slightly smaller outgoing parliament, according to a projection based on final and provisional results late on Sunday.

Far-right gains in the EU elections have triggered a snap parliamentary election in France, with President Emmanuel Macron’s surprise decision to call the vote labelled by many as a high-risk move.

Despite centrist parties retaining an overall majority in the European parliament, across the bloc extreme right parties notched a string of high-profile wins, with a resounding win by the far-right National Rally (RN) party of Marine Le Pen prompting Macron to make the gamble.

The RN won 31.5% of the vote to 15% for Macron’s centrist Renaissance party, according to exit polls.

“We are ready to take power if the French show trust in us,” Le Pen told her party on Sunday evening.

“I cannot act as if nothing had happened,” Macron told the country in a national address.

The French people, he said, must now make “the best choice for itself and future generations”.

Welcome to the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the European parliamentary elections.

It’s 6am in Brussels, where EU lawmaking is set to get more complicated, after parties on the populist right made huge gains in many countries, while in others, support for the centre-right establishment held and leftwing parties made surprising gains.

Perhaps the most surprising response to the surge in support for populist parties was from France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, who called snap legislative elections after a crushing defeat by Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally.

The RN won about 32% of French votes, more than double the 15% or so scored by Macron’s allies, according to projections, with the Socialists just behind on about 14%.

“I cannot act as if nothing had happened,” Macron said. “I have decided to give you the choice.”

We’ll have much more reaction to results from across the continent, but first here’s a summary of the major results:

• Despite gains for the far and radical right on Sunday, the mainstream, pro-European parties were on course to hold their majority in the EU parliament. The centre-right European People’s party (EPP), which also topped the polls in Spain and Poland, won the largest number of seats, boosting the chances of its lead candidate, Ursula von der Leyen, to secure a second term as European Commission president. “There remains a majority in the centre for a strong Europe and that is crucial for stability. In other words the centre is holding,” von der Leyen said. The extremes on the left and right had gained support, she said, which put “great responsibility on the parties in the centre”.

• Socialists won the largest share of the vote in Malta, Romania and Sweden, helping the centre-left to retain its position as the parliament’s second-largest group, albeit far weaker than the 1990s, when it led many more governments. The EPP, Socialists and Democrats, the centrist Renew group and the Greens were on course for 462 of the 720 seats, a 64.1% share, compared with their 69.2% share in the slightly smaller outgoing parliament, according to a projection based on final and provisional results late on Sunday.

• Olaf Scholz’s coalition had a bad night in Germany, as the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) made significant gains. The Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union, now in opposition, took a decisive lead, with 30.9% of the vote, according to provisional results. The AfD jumped to 14.2% from 11% in 2019, despite a slew of scandals, including its lead candidate saying that the SS, the Nazi’s main paramilitary force, were “not all criminals”.

• Italian prime minister Georgia Meloni’s thanked voters after exit polls showed her hard-right Brothers of Italy party winning 26%-30% of the vote, comfortably ahead of its centre-left rivals on 21%-25%.

• The Nordic countries bucked the overall trend in the EU elections, with left-wing and green parties making gains, official results showed, while far-right parties saw their support diminish. Denmark saw a surprise surge in support for the Socialist People’s Party (SF), which became the largest party with 17.4% of the vote, up 4.2 percentage points compared to the 2019 result – with all votes counted.

• Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer has said he heard voters’ “message” and will seek to address their concerns ahead of national elections later this year, including cracking down on “illegal migration”. Nehammer was speaking after close-to-final results showed that far-right party FPOe had come first in EU elections with 25.7% of the vote, just ahead of his ruling conservative People’s Party (OeVP) which stood at 24.7%.

• In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ far-right party was second behind a Left-Green alliance, but appeared to have fallen short of expectations. The Freedom party took 17% of the vote, while the Left-Green alliance, led by the former EU Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans, was on 21.1%.

• The Fidesz party of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán received the most votes, but its performance was its worse in years. With 84.36% of votes counted, the ruling party was at 44.17%, while Péter Magyar’s opposition Tisza party was at 30.09%. Magyar called the election the Fidesz government’s Waterloo and “the beginning of the end”.