European elections: Paris and Berlin - not Brussels – will feel heat of far right’s gains

Emmanuel Macron’s humbling 15%-32% defeat by Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) pushed the French president into the huge gamble of calling a snap legislative election. Photograph: Caroline Blumberg/Reuters

So in the end, with a couple of alarming wobbles, the centre held. As polls predicted, the mainstream pro-EU alliance of centre-right, centre-left, liberal and Green parties in the European parliament hung on, quite comfortably, to its majority.

Europe’s national conservative and far-right forces made big gains, ending up with just under a quarter of MEPs in the 720-seat assembly – their highest tally ever. But they did not do uniformly well, and in some places fared worse than forecast.