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DW
While it was expected, it's still a sensation: the rightwing extremist National Front (FN) got more than 25 percent of the vote in the European parliamentary elections in France. That makes Marine Le Pen's party France's strongest political force in the EU legislature. France's current government party, the Socialists, only gathered 14 percent of the vote and landed in third place behind the conservative UMP, the party of former President Nicolas Sarkozy, which got 21 percent of the vote.Le Pen was demonstrably assertive after the results were announced. "We can be self-confident. The coalition of those who lost faith in France has shown that it doesn't want to be ruled from the outside anymore," the leader of the National Front said, alluding to the EU's influence on French politics, which she thinks is too large. "Our people demand French politics, by the French and for the French."
Le Pen immediately called for domestic consequences. She said that President Francois Hollande had no choice but to suspend the French parliament: "It's not acceptable that the National Assembly is so unrepresentative of the population."
Al Jazeera
Far-right and anti-EU parties have made sweeping gains in the European Parliament elections, with the socialist French prime minister Manuel Valls describing the results "an earthquake".Eurosceptic parties came first in France, the UK and Denmark, among others. The European Parliament's predictions on Monday showed that there would be about 140 anti-EU and far-right members of the 751-seat assembly.
The European People’s Party, the centre-right bloc in the parliament, is expected to win 212 seats, while the European Socialists are predicted to secure 186 seats.
The turnout was 43.1 percent, according to the preliminary results, compared to 43 percent in 2009.Nathalie Tocci, from the Institute of International Affairs in Rome, specialises in EU politics. "The European Parliament elections are an expression of the EU lacking legitimacy in the eyes of EU citizens, both due to the handling of the [eurozone] crisis and the perceived disconnect between decision-makers and publics," she told Al Jazeera.
BBC
Eurosceptic and far-right parties have seized ground in elections to the European parliament, in what France's PM called a "political earthquake".UK Independence Party and French National Front both performed strongly. The three big centrist blocs all lost seats, though still hold the majority.
The outcome means a greater say for those who want to cut back the EU's powers, or abolish it completely.
UK PM David Cameron said the public was "disillusioned" with the EU.
Mr Cameron said their message was "received and understood".
NY Times
LONDON — Members of the European political elite expressed alarm on Monday over the strong showing in European Parliament elections by nationalist and anti-immigrant parties skeptical about European integration, a development described by the French prime minister as an “earthquake.”In France, Britain and elsewhere, anti-immigrant parties opposed to the influence of the European Union emerged in the lead. In France, the National Front won 26 percent of the vote to defeat both the governing Socialists and the Union for a Popular Movement, the center-right party of former President Nicolas Sarkozy. In Britain, the triumph of the U.K. Independence Party, or UKIP, which won 28 percent of the vote, represented the first time since 1910 that a nationwide vote had not been won by either the Conservatives or Labour.