Europe's longtime political center appears to shrink as exit polls, early results from the hardest-fought European Parliament elections in decades show both anti-immigrant far right and pro-environment Greens gaining ground.
A woman exits a voting cabin with curtains depicting the European Union in Baleni, Romania, Sunday, May 26, 2019. The ruling Social Democratic Party suffered a major blow in the European Parliament elections according to the country's only exit poll.
“Not only is the League the first party in Italy, but Marine Le Pen is first in France, Nigel Farage is first in Great Britain. Therefore, Italy, France and England: the sign of a Europe that is changing, that is fed up,” Salvini said. “The monopoly of power is broken,” Margrethe Vestager, of the pro-EU ALDE grouping that includes Macron’s party. Vestager declared herself a candidate to lead the European commission for ALDE, which gained seats in large part because Macron’s party is itself a newcomer.
Turnout across the bloc was put at 50.5%, a 20-year high. An estimated 426 million people were eligible to vote. The Greens did well not just in Germany but in France and Ireland. “The Green wave has really spread all over Europe, and for us that is a fantastic result,” said Ska Keller, the group’s co-leader in the Parliament.
Europe has been roiled in the past few years by immigration from the Mideast and Africa and deadly attacks by Islamic extremists. It has also seen rising tensions over economic inequality and growing hostility toward the political establishment — sentiments not unlike those that got Donald Trump elected in the U.S.
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