French President Emmanuel Macron dissolved his country’s parliament and called snap elections later this month after a European Union exit poll projected a big victory for his rival Marine Le Pen's National Rally in the European Parliament vote.
Exit polls showed gains for far-right parties in Germany and Austria, as three days of voting wrapped on Sunday across the EU’s 27 member states.
The far-right party is on course to win 32% of the vote, exit polls say, more than twice that of the president's Renaissance party.
The first round of elections for the lower house National Assembly will take place on June 30, and the second round on July 7, Macron announced in an address to the nation.
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The first projected results from France put the far-right National Rally party well ahead in the European Union’s parliamentary elections, handing a loss to Macron’s pro-European centrists, according to French opinion poll institutes.
After projected defeat, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the dissolution of Parliament, and called snap elections.
The legislative elections will take place in two rounds, on June 30 and July 7.
Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration, nationalist party was estimated to get around 31-32% of the votes, more than double the share of Macron’s Renaissance party, which was projected to reach around 15%.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party, in coalition with the country’s Christian Democratic People’s Party (KDNP), has come out on top with 43.7% of the vote, according to an exit poll, CNN reported.
Belgium Prime Minister Alexander De Croo has resigned after his party's crushing loss in Sunday's national and European parliamentary elections, according to CNN.
France’s far right is poised and “ready to take power,” the movement’s leader Marine Le Pen warned on Sunday after French President Emmanuel Macron called a snap parliamentary election.
Exit polls showed that far-right parties were set to win around 150 of the parliament’s 720 seats.
A rightwards shift inside the European Parliament may make it tougher to pass new legislation that might be needed to respond to security challenges, the impact of climate change or industrial competition from China and the United States.
