Several media from here and elsewhere (a notable exception: the balanced column by François Brousseau, also a columnist at Duty, on Radio-Canada) and some political scientists spoke of a considerable rise of the far right during the European elections which were held from June 6 to 9. However, the radical right has not made significant progress on a European scale and the “majority” made up of conservatives, centrists and social democrats has essentially retained its positions. Let’s see what the numbers say.
According to estimates published by the European Union (we still do not know the results for Ireland [14 sièges]), the three groups that can be identified with the radical right (European Conservatives and Reformists [ECR]Identity and democracy [ID] and unaffiliated parties, like that of Viktor Orbán in Hungary, grouped by observers under the label “far right diverse”) obtained 73, 58 and 45 deputies respectively, for a total of 176.
With the changes in parliamentary groups on the radical right side and Brexit, the comparison with the 2019 elections is a little tricky, but it is estimated that these parties had a total of 173 deputies at the end of the legislature (excluding the provisional contingent of the Brexit Party, which left at the beginning of 2020). The weight of radical right parties remained what it was in the outgoing Parliament, around 24.5%.
But if we go back to the 2019 election and include the UK seats, radical right elected officials then represented 27.5% of the total. As a percentage of votes cast, the radical right had a total of 25.5% of the votes in 2019; in 2024, this total is 24.6%. The Irish results are unlikely to change the situation.
Let us add to this that the “outgoing majority”, made up of conservative parties (European People’s Party [PPE]), center left (Social Democrats [SD]), as well as centrists and liberals, obtained a functional majority of 400 deputies — the absolute majority being 361.
Certainly, these parties have lost weight: in the outgoing Parliament, their numbers amounted to 417. The drop here results mainly from the losses of the centrist group (-31), since the EPP gained 6 seats, a good part of it in Poland, where the Civic Coalition, led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, is clearly pro-European. The balance of power in the European Parliament therefore remains essentially the same and we are surprised to hear discussions about the effects that this alleged rise of the extreme right would have on… Quebec and Canada.
This analysis error results from an overinterpretation or a misreading of the results in some countries. Let’s start with France. The victory of the National Rally (RN) obviously constitutes an earthquake and it immediately provoked the calling of legislative elections. But it is above all a French phenomenon. Moreover, the combined successes of the RN and the other radical right party in France, Reconquête (+17 seats), far exceed those of the radical right on a European scale, which rather indicates losses in several country.
In Italy, we are talking about the successes of Giorgia Meloni: her party, Fratelli d’Italia, went from 10 deputies in 2019 to 24 in 2024. But Matteo Salvini’s League, also from the radical right, went from 22 to 8. The two parties together had therefore elected 32 European deputies in 2019 and they elected yesterday… 32! By the way, the center left gained 6 seats, going from 15 to 21. Balance of power unchanged at the national level as in the European representation, but Meloni’s advantage over Salvini: a truly Italian affair.
In Germany, the Alternative (AfD) went from 9 to 15 deputies, with an unprecedented score (16%) which places it 2e, but does not contrast much with its results in the municipal, regional or legislative elections of the last decade (between 9% and 15%). In Austria, the FPÖ comes first with 26% of the votes and 6 seats (3 in 2019): it obtained 27.5% in the European elections of… 1996, 27% in the legislative elections of 1999 and 26% in those of 2017. in these last two cases, we have political forces firmly established in their country (the FPÖ has already participated in three government majorities).
We must conclude from this that the results must first be read on a national scale. It is certainly significant that the radical and Eurosceptic right is making such progress in France and, less spectacularly, in Germany (where the parties of the “outgoing majority” nevertheless retain two thirds of the seats). But the French prism must not obscure the rest.
In Italy, we have in fact only witnessed an expected rebalancing between the two radical right parties in government. In a few countries (Finland, Netherlands, Poland), the radical right lost seats; in many, it remains marginal. The “radical left”, which brings together parties some of which are more or less eurosceptic (La France insoumise, for example), is stagnating (-1) and the ecologists – like the centrists and liberals of the majority – are suffering losses ( -18). The “others”, deputies not attached to a European party (like those of the 5 Star Movement in Italy or the Catalan separatists), increased from 31 to 49.
If France were to soon have an RN government, this would of course have an effect on the functioning of European institutions, first and foremost the Council of Europe where heads of state and government meet. But, contrary to what many feared (and what some seem to see), the predicted seismic shock did not extend to the whole of Europe and Parliament was not turned upside down the day after the election.