Category Archives: European elections

Far-right French candidate attacked by masked assailants on campaign trail

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National Rally’s Hervé Breuil, 68, hospitalised after being assaulted as he handed out flyers in central France before snap elections

Masked assailants have assaulted a far-right candidate on the campaign trail ahead of France’s snap parliamentary election, in the latest incident of violence targeting politicians across Europe.

Police said Hervé Breuil, a candidate for Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) party, was assaulted as he handed out flyers on Thursday morning with four others in the industrial city of Saint Étienne, in central France.

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Ursula von der Leyen on track to keep job after EU elections boost

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Macron’s move to call snap elections also seen as helping commission president’s bid for second term

Ursula von der Leyen is on track to remain for a second term as president of the European Commission, as EU leaders meet on Monday for a first discussion on divvying up the bloc’s top jobs.

The EU’s 27 heads of state and government will gather for dinner in Brussels in their first group meeting since European elections last week boosted nationalist and far-right parties and triggered Emmanuel Macron to call snap elections in France.

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Les Républicains leader vows to stay on despite revolt over Le Pen alliance plans

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Éric Ciotti was thought to have locked party’s headquarters, where colleagues were to meet in bid to oust him

Éric Ciotti, the leader of France’s mainstream rightwing party, Les Républicains, has vowed he will stay in his job despite key members of his party voting unanimously to oust him over his proposed alliance with the far right.

Ciotti was believed to have been holed up in his office on Wednesday after locking members out of his party’s Paris headquarters amid a mass revolt over his call for an alliance with Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally.

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Macron urges French parties to unite against far-right National Rally

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President warns against ‘spirit of defeatism’ as country prepares for snap vote to clarify far-right surge in support

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has urged all parties to form an alliance against Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally and resist the “spirit of defeatism” after he announced a surprise snap election in response to the far-right’s large gains in European elections.

With the far right at a historic high and the French political class plunged into uncertainty with less than three weeks until the first round of the legislative vote, Macron said he had dissolved parliament and called the election in order to hold back “extremes”.

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Danish PM ‘not doing great’ four days after assault in Copenhagen

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Mette Frederiksen gives first interview since assault, saying it was ‘a kind of attack on us all’

Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, has said she is still “not doing great” but will continue to work, in her first interview since she was assaulted in a Copenhagen square last week.

Frederiksen, 46, suffered minor whiplash in the attack last Friday, which is not thought to have been politically motivated. A 39-year-old Polish man was detained on suspicion of assault.

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‘We’ve all got to mobilise against the far right’: inside a French town that voted for Le Pen

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In L’Aisne, where the National Rally won over 50% of votes in the European elections, there is unease about the snap election

“Everyone is in total shock,” said Baptiste Lopata, a radiologist, sitting in his trade union office in the small northern French town of Soissons. “Now we’ve all got to mobilise against the far right.”

When Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration, far-right National Rally (RN) won a historic victory in the European elections on Sunday night, its highest scores were here, in the north-eastern département of l’Aisne, where it won over 50%, and even 60% in some rural villages, compared with a 31% score nationwide.

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Three possible outcomes of Macron’s shocking snap election

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President may slow the seemingly unstoppable far-right rise, but find himself trapped in a splintered parliament

Two years into his second term and with three more still to run, Emmanuel Macron’s ratings are not what anyone would call great: 65% disapproval, 34% approval. Since losing his absolute majority in the assemblée nationale in 2022, he has struggled.

Parliament has been increasingly paralysed, with the government relying on ad hoc deals with increasingly reluctant opposition parties or despised constitutional tools to pass unpopular legislation.

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Belgian PM resigns after crushing defeat by far right in general election

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Alexander De Croo notified King Philippe on Monday morning, but will lead until a new coalition is formed

The Belgian prime minister has formally tendered his resignation following a visit to the King, after his Flemish Liberals and Democrats party (Open VLD) suffered heavy defeats in Sunday’s general election.

Alexander De Croo will remain caretaker prime minister until a new coalition, involving seven parties, is formed, a process that could take months.

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‘Conservative values will impact EU policymaking like never before,’ says rightwing group

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European Conservatives and Reformists party includes members such as Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy and Poland’s Law and Justice

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?”

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

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European elections’ main impact likely to be felt in national capitals

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Mainstream groups hold on to majority in European parliament but far right gains weaken governments in France and Germany

So in the end, with a couple of alarming wobbles, the centre held. As polls predicted, the mainstream pro-EU alliance of centre-right, centre-left, liberal and Green parties in the European parliament hung on, quite comfortably, to its majority.

Europe’s national conservative and far-right forces made big gains, ending up with just under a quarter of MEPs in the 720-seat assembly – their highest tally ever. But they did not do uniformly well, and in some places fared worse than forecast.

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EU elections 2024 live: Macron dissolves French parliament and calls snap election; Meloni’s party leading in Italy, poll says

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Emmanuel Macron makes shock decision as far-right make huge gains in France and across continent

Ursula von der Leyen, who is seeking a second five-year term as head of the European Commission, has cast her vote and is urging others to do the same.

Much is at stake for the German centre-right politician, as the European parliament, which sits in Brussels and Strasbourg, will also have the final say on whether she gets a coveted second-term as European Commission president, one of the most powerful positions in European politics.

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European election results 2024 in full: explore the new parliament

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As the new European Parliament sits for its first session in Strasbourg, explore the results of the EU elections – and the shape of the new parliament, either by bloc or by country

This is the 10th election for the EU parliament, in which all 720 seats will be contested and 361 seats are needed for a majority. No single political group is likely to achieve this target.

Estimate, when when voting is finished and there is an estimate of a country’s results based on polling institutes;

Projection, for when there is an estimate of the full EU parliament composition;

Provisional, for when a country’s official election authority has published its first voting results but the final result is not known, and when the full EU parliament’s composition depends on such provisional national figures;

Final, for when a country’s official election authority has published full results;

Constitutive, for when the full EU parliament’s composition is officially confirmed.

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Hundreds of millions head to polls on final day of European elections

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Voters in most EU member states called to polls on Sunday, as far-right parties expected to gain record number of seats

Hundreds of millions of voters go to the polls on Sunday in European parliament elections that are expected to tilt the assembly further to the radical and far right, shaping the continent’s future course.

Voters in most EU member states, including France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland, are called to the polls on Sunday, the final day of a four-day election cycle that began in the Netherlands on Thursday.

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European elections live: leaders condemn attack on Denmark’s PM as more countries head to the polls

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Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, was hit by a man on Friday evening

Robert Fico, Slovakia’s prime minister who was shot and seriously injured in May, cast his vote at a hospital in Bratislava.

Fico, a populist politician who is closely allied with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and has promoted a foreign policy more friendly toward Russia, wrote on social media:

I voted in the hospital because these elections are also important. It is necessary to vote for MEPs who will support peace initiatives and not the continuation of war.

Consent of western countries given to Ukraine to use western weapons to attack targets on Russian territory is just a proof that big western democracies do not want peace, but an escalation of tensions with the Russian Federation, which will surely happen.

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European elections live: Hungary poll puts Orbán’s Fidesz on 50% with Magyar’s Tisza on 27%

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Party of far-right populist predicted to take 11 seats against six for challenger who is building a centrist movement

Céline, a civil servant and administrator in several French government ministries, used to keep quiet about the fact that she voted for the far-right, anti-immigration party of Marine Le Pen. “I couldn’t talk about it at work; people would say: ‘You’re a fascist.’ It was frowned upon – it was almost a sackable offence,” said the 68-year-old, who retired three years ago.

But today, even in her hometown of Boulogne-Billancourt, west of Paris, where the largely well-off residents have been historically closed to the far right, and voted 83% for the centrist Emmanuel Macron in the 2022 presidential final round, Céline has noticed a shift in the public mood.

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‘Mostly, they don’t vote’: Dutch far-right support in European elections depends on turnout

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Geert Wilders’ PVV party is predicted to go from one seat to eight in European parliament nonetheless

Elections to the world’s only transnational assembly get under way in earnest on Thursday as Dutch voters go to the polls in a four-day, 27-country ballot that will return 720 MEPs to the next European parliament.

The results of the elections, which will shape the makeup of the next European Commission and could have a major impact on the bloc’s political direction in key areas including immigration and climate action, are expected on Sunday evening.

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The EU is braced for a rise in the hard right. But will the centre normalise it?

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Veterans in bloc will have to adjust to new reality as rightwing groups expected to have real influence for first time

When the results of the European parliamentary elections start to emerge on Sunday night, polls suggest they will show that the world’s only directly elected transnational assembly will have tilted, unambiguously, to the right.

Yet, for all the talk of a significant surge in support for the forces of Europe’s hard right, their gains should prove broadly in line with a steady progression over the past couple of decades or more. The difference will be in the response.

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Far-right AfD party candidate stabbed in Mannheim

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Heinrich Koch reportedly stabbed in altercation over election posters days after police officer died in attack in same German city

Politicians in Germany have pleaded for calm on the campaign trail after a candidate for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party was stabbed in the south-west German city of Mannheim, less than a week after a police officer was killed in a knife attack in the city.

The attack, which took place on Tuesday evening but was confirmed by police on Wednesday, left the politician with non-life threatening injuries for which he is being treated in hospital.

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Elon Musk does not grasp EU fears about disinformation on X, official says

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EU commissioner Vera Jourová says tech firms must hire staff versed in legal and historical context of free speech in Europe

Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, lacks understanding of European concerns over the hatred and division that can result from the spread of disinformation, a senior EU commissioner has said.

Speaking just days before the European parliamentary elections, in which disinformation, particularly Russian-backed propaganda, has been a key issue, Věra Jourová criticised what she said was a clear deterioration in content moderation on X since Musk bought the platform in 2022.

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Disinformation crisis unit on rapid alert around European elections

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EU officials anticipate ‘narratives questioning the legitimacy of the elections’ for weeks afterwards

Debunking, prebunking and factchecking; correcting lies, fake news and race hate – battling disinformation before this week’s European elections has become a high-stakes, full-time job for hundreds of staff across the continent.

EU leaders are so concerned over foreign interference in the polls, due to take place from Thursday to Sunday, that they have put rapid alert teams on notice to swing into action in the event of a serious incident. Officials say the quantity of disinformation has reached “tsunami levels” – but political leaders have been the slowest to catch on.

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