Right-wing gains in Germany and Europe – new election in France
Published: Sunday, Jun 9th 2024, 22:20
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Right-wing parties have made gains in the European elections. In Germany, the AfD made strong gains despite the controversies surrounding its lead candidate, achieving its best result to date and coming second behind the CDU/CSU. In eastern Germany, it is even in first place just a few months before three state elections.
Right-wing parties achieved major successes in France and Austria. In Paris, President Emmanuel Macron then announced an early election to the National Assembly. Across Europe, the right-wing populist ID party alliance made significant gains.
Overall, however, the clearly pro-European camp remains by far the largest in the European Parliament. Even if all right-wing parties were to join forces, they would probably end up with fewer than 200 seats and would therefore be far from a majority. This lies at 361 seats. In principle, however, finding a majority in the European Parliament could become even more difficult.
The winner of the European elections is the center-right EPP alliance with German lead candidate Ursula von der Leyen. The CDU politician can therefore hope for a second term as President of the EU Commission.
According to an initial official forecast by the EU Parliament, the EPP with the German parties CDU and CSU can fill 186 and thus a quarter of the 720 seats in the slightly enlarged European Parliament.
The previous right-wing populist party alliances EKR and ID have 70 (most recently 69) and 60 (most recently 49) seats respectively. This does not include the AfD MPs. The AfD is counted as a non-attached party, as it was excluded from the ID group shortly before the European elections.
The second strongest camp remains the Social Democrats, who, like the EPP, remain constant with 133 seats. They are followed by the Liberals, who have slipped to 82 seats (previously 102). The Greens are a big loser. According to the forecast, they now only have 53 seats (previously 71).
Germany: AfD strong - but weaker than in some polls
According to projections by ARD and ZDF, the AfD achieved its best result to date in a nationwide poll with 16 to 16.2% (2019: 11%). This puts it well ahead of the SPD (13.9% to 14%), Greens (11.9%) and FDP (4.9% to 5%). However, the CDU/CSU is clearly in first place with 30.1% to 30.3%.
In Germany, the European elections are also seen as an important test of sentiment ahead of the three state elections in Thuringia, Saxony and Brandenburg in September and the Bundestag elections next year.
The AfD result was weaker than in the polls at the beginning of the year, when the AfD had temporarily been at more than 20 percent. However, accusations against its top candidate Maximilian Krah and the number two on the European election list, Petr Bystron, got the party into trouble. Both hit the headlines due to possible links to pro-Russian networks. Krah, who has been a member of the European Parliament since 2019, recently received massive criticism for trivializing statements about the SS, the so-called Schutzstaffel of the National Socialists. The AfD's federal executive committee subsequently called on Krah to no longer appear in the election campaign.
France: Le Pen's right-wing nationalists clearly ahead
The European elections are a bitter defeat for French President Emmanuel Macron. According to initial projections, the right-wing nationalist party Rassemblement National (RN) led by Marine Le Pen won around 32% - twice as many votes as Macron's camp. As a consequence, the head of state announced a new parliamentary election, with two rounds scheduled for June 30 and July 7. "So at the end of this day, I can't pretend that nothing has happened," he said. Macron himself is directly elected and his term of office runs until 2027.
His centrist camp was already weakened. It had not had an absolute majority in the National Assembly for almost two years. Governing since then has been difficult. The focus in France is also on the presidential election in just under three years' time. Macron, who won two run-off elections against Le Pen, is not allowed to run again. It is still unclear who the centrist forces will send into the race and who would stand a chance against Le Pen. The daughter of far-right party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen has successfully managed to present a much more moderate image and make her party electable far into the bourgeois right.
Austria: FPÖ on the rise ahead of the parliamentary elections in the fall
In Austria, the right-wing FPÖ is set to win the European elections. According to a trend forecast, the right-wing populists are ahead of the social democratic SPÖ with 27% and the conservative ÖVP with around 23% each. Compared to the 2019 EU elections, the FPÖ has thus gained around 10 percentage points. During the election campaign, the party had often emphasized its EU scepticism under the slogan "Stop EU madness" and portrayed the EU as a warmongering force in the Ukraine conflict. The ballot was also seen as a test for the National Council elections in the fall.
©Keystone/SDA
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