Le Pen on march in populist sweep of EU

FAR-RIGHT and Eurosceptic parties were last night on course to win more European Parliament seats than ever before.

The surge will also help to break the majority held by the two largest centre-right and centre-left groups of parties for 40 years.

Anti-immigration parties, such as those led by Marine Le Pen in France and Matteo Salvini in Italy, were set to take around a quarter of seats.

Mr Salvini’s populist League party was expected to win up to 25, the highest of any of the country’s parties and up from seven in 2014. Meanwhile Miss Le Pen’s National Rally got around 24 per cent of votes, seeing off French President Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche party, which got about 22.5 per cent.

In Germany, support for Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats coalition was down 7 percentage points to 28 per cent, while the far-right Alternative for Germany party got around 11 per cent of the vote. In Holland the far-right

Forum for Democracy party, launched in 201 by Thierry Baudet, picked up around 11 per cent of votes.

Results from national exit polls also suggested support was up for Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban’s populist Fidesz party.

The rise in support for parties hostile to the EU means that the largest centreright and centre-left groupings, the European People’s Party and Socialists and Democrats, could now lose their majority for the first time since 1979.

The two umbrella groups won 412 seats in 2014, but are only expected to win around 320 this time – well short of the 37 needed for a majority.

Guy Verhofstadt, the parliament’s chief Brexit negotiator, told the Daily Mail the results showed European politics is as ‘fragmented’ as ever and that ‘European unity is certainly under threat’.