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 and Britain in particular, 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.
'The people's army of UKIP have spoken tonight and delivered just about the most extraordinary result that has been seen in British politics for 100 years,' said Nigel Farage, UKIP's leader.
Official results released overnight showed that populist parties strongly opposed to the European Union also trounced establishment forces in Denmark and Greece and did well in Austria and Sweden. The results, a stark challenge to champions of greater European integration, left mainstream political leaders stunned.
The radical left-wing Syriza coalition in Greece beat the party of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, while Golden Dawn, a neo-Nazi outfit that the Greek authorities have tried in vain to outlaw, also picked up seats, bringing Holocaust-deniers and belligerent xenophobes into the European Parliament.
With the political landscape redrawn across Europe, some politicians, notably Nick Clegg, the British deputy prime minister and leader of the Liberal Democrats, the junior coalition partner, faced calls from their own party members to quit. The Liberal Democrats finished fifth in Britain and lost nearly all their seats at the European Parliament.
Traditional parties sought to depict the ballot as a protest vote inspired by deep alienation among voters repelled by what they consider to be out-of-touch political elites at home and an arrogant European Union bureaucracy spreading its influence with no democratic mandate.
In Paris, the victory by the National Front, led by Marine Le Pen, prompted Manuel Valls, the French prime minister, to acknowledge: 'It's an earthquake.'
'We are in a crisis of confidence,' Mr. Valls added. 'Our country has for a long time been in an identity crisis, a crisis about France's place in Europe, Europe's place in our country.'
President François Hollande of France called an emergency meeting of senior ministers after his Socialist Party finished a remote third.
The rise of the right had been widely forecast, but it nonetheless sent shock waves. In Germany, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier expressed dismay over the French result and the fact that the extremist, anti-immigrant National Democratic Party of Germany, or N.P.D., which won 1 percent of the vote, had earned a seat.
'In some countries it won't be as bad as had been feared, for example in the Netherlands, but France's National Front is a severe signal, and it horrifies me that the N.P.D. from Germany will be represented in the Parliament,' Mr. Steinmeier said, according to Agence France-Presse.
In the German vote, traditional parties were clear winners, but a new Euroskeptic party, the Alternative for Germany, also took 7 percent of the vote, news reports said.
José Manuel Barroso, the departing president of the European Commission, the executive branch of the 28-nation European Union, issued a statement on Monday urging a 'truly democratic debate' to meet the concerns of 'those who voted in protest or did not vote.'
European Parliament ballots often do not reflect voting patterns in national elections, which favor traditional parties. But in Britain, Mr. Farage, the U.K. Independence Party leader, depicted his triumph on Sunday as the harbinger of greater prominence in next year's national elections, saying that his followers could hold the balance of power if neither the Conservatives nor Labour win an outright majority.
'We will go on next year to a general election with a targeting strategy and I promise you this: You haven't heard the last of us,' he said.
Posted by Unknown on Monday, May 26, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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