Macron and Scholz Emerge as the Big Losers of the European Parliament Elections
It's far from clear that the far-right won, but enthusiasm was way up
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have emerged as the big losers of the European Parliament elections, which ended on June 9. The European Parliament is the least powerful of the EU institutions and often dismissed as a talking shop, but the vote was widely seen as a test of the strength of the far-right. Far-right parties did well in France, and to a lesser extent, Germany. In France, the National Rally party was projected to lead with 31.5 percent of the vote, over twice what Macron's party got. In Germany, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), came in second with 15.6 percent of the vote, ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democratic Party (SPD).
Following the results, Macron called a snap election of France's parliament. The first round will be on June 30. Macron himself won't be on the ballot (he is term-limited in 2027) and doesn't have a parliamentary majority. He is gambling that by seizing the initiative, he can rally against the far-right, whom he describes as a danger to Europe and Ukraine. However, that is a risky bet: in the U.K., Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made a similar move by calling for surprise elections on July 4 while behind in the polls, and his campaign has stumbled while the Labour Party has maintained a wide lead.
In Germany, Scholz suffered a personal repudiation. Although he wasn't on the ballot, he insisted that election posters have his face alongside his party’s lead candidate for the Europe race, Katarina Barley. (In Berlin, many of these posters have been defaced.) According to projections, his party only got around 14 percent of the vote, less than AfD's 15.6 percent (a 5 percent improvement over 2019) and the conservative Christian Democratic Union's 30.3 percent. Scholz governs in a coalition with Greens and the Free Democratic Party; the coalition overall got slightly less than 30 percent of the vote. While he faces election in fall 2025 and German coalitions rarely splinter before elections, the middling result and the bitterly divided three-party grouping may make a breakup more likely.
While the far-right did well in Europe's largest countries, they did less well in others, including countries such as Poland and Hungary, where they have actually been in power. Cas Mudde, a far-right expert, posted on X, "Far-right parties (seem to) underperform in Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania & Sweden... Greece, Netherlands & Spain not remarkable either. Sure, the far right wins, with new record seats, but no major victory overall." Far-right parties remain divided; the far-right Identity and Democracy (ID) European Parliament grouping expelled AfD as a result of Russian and Chinese influence scandals and after French far-right leader Marine LePen -- whose party also is affiliated with ID -- said she wouldn't sit with them.
While Macron and Scholz suffered personal defeats, it's not the case that the far-right achieved an expected overall surge. ID netted nine seats overall, while the populist European Conservatives and Reformists grouping, gained four. (Due to population growth, the parliament is growing from 705 to 720 seats.)
The European Parliament is the second-largest electorate behind India. An estimated 400 million Europeans are eligible to cast ballots across 27 countries. Therefore, it's hard to make an overall statement. But enthusiasm was up. Voter turnout was estimated at around 51% overall, higher than in the last election in 2019. In Hungary, turnout was estimated at 58.7 percent, and Prime Minister Viktor Orban's party, Fidesz, did worse than expected. I didn't have Instagram during the 2019 election, but my feed was filled with posts calling on people to vote. Even Berlin Club Memes, a popular account poking fun at the city's nightlife, got in on it. It's unusual that a legislative election generates so much enthusiasm, but in 2024, people know the stakes.