Far-right parties have made significant gains in European Union parliamentary elections, suffering shock defeats to two of the bloc's most important leaders: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron.
In Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was on course for second place in Sunday's EU elections, according to projections by public broadcaster ARD, underscoring the party's resilience. ahead of next year's federal elections.
The eurosceptic party was set to win a record 16.5 percent of the vote on Sunday, according to an exit poll published by ARD.
That was 5.5 percentage points more than in the last European Union election in 2019, and more than the three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition.
The Conservatives, who are in opposition at the federal level, are predicted to take first place, with a slight increase to 29.5 per cent.
Germany's Greens were the biggest losers on Sunday, falling 8.5 percentage points to 12 percent, punished by voters for the cost of policies to reduce CO2 emissions, in line with green parties' expectations of All Europe.
Scholz's Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the third coalition partner, the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), also performed poorly, and are expected to win 14 percent and 5 percent of the vote respectively. compared to 15.8 percent and 5.4 percent in the presidential elections. previous election.
The results are in line with an expected broader shift to the right in the European Parliament across the bloc of 450 million citizens.
The strong showing comes at a time when Germany's partisan landscape is undergoing its greatest upheaval in decades, with new populist parties vying to fill the space left by the dwindling traditional parties that have dominated since reunification in 1990.
This looks set to make it much harder for established parties to form viable coalitions and is worsening the political climate, analysts say. The campaign was overshadowed by a rise in violence against politicians and activists.
The AfD has been plagued by scandals in recent months, and its leading candidate had to withdraw from the campaign in May after declaring that the SS, the Nazis' main paramilitary force, “were not all criminals.”
“We have done well because people have become more anti-European,” AfD co-leader Alice Weidel said on Sunday.
“People are upset by so much bureaucracy in Brussels,” he added, giving as an example a plan to ultimately ban cars that emit CO2.
In France, Marine Le Pen's National Rally party dominated the polls to such an extent that Macron immediately dissolved the national parliament and called new elections, a huge political risk as his party could suffer further losses, hampering the rest of his term. presidential. which ends in 2027.
Projected results in France put Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally party at around 33 percent, with 31 seats in the next European Parliament, more than double that of President Emmanuel Macron's Liberals, at 15 percent.
Macron recognized the thud of defeat. “I have heard his message, his concerns, and I will not leave them unanswered,” he said, adding that calling early elections only underlined his democratic credentials.
Overall, across the EU, two traditional, pro-European groups, the Christian Democrats and the Socialists, remained the dominant forces. The far-right's gains came at the expense of the Greens, who were expected to lose about 20 seats and fall back to sixth place in the legislature.
Al Jazeera's Step Vaessen reported from Berlin that Eurosceptic parties appeared set to form a large bloc in the next European Parliament.
“With this large bloc of far-right parties, there may be an influence on climate policies, for example… Furthermore, [the EU’s] agricultural policies… and immigration policies, which is a very important issue here in Germany and in the Netherlands,” he said.
However, Vaessen noted that far-right parties are not united.
“They have a lot of divisions between them and they have been trying to get closer to each other. We have seen [France’s] Marine Le Pen, for example, contacting [Prime Minister] Giorgia Meloni in Italy,” he said.
“But after tonight we will have to see how these groups will form and what kind of influence they will have.”
