Analysis Far right's gains will hit home in Paris and Berlin

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.

- Jon Henley

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.

Where they did do well, they did very well, most notably in France, where Emmanuel Macron's 15%-32% defeat by Marine Le Pen's National Rally (RN) pushed the French president into the huge gamble of calling a snap election.

In Germany, too, despite a number of scandals including Nazi whitewashing, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) received a higher proportion of the national vote (16%) than any of the three parties in the beleaguered coalition of the chancellor, Olaf Scholz.

These are worrying developments in the two countries that have traditionally been the motor driving the EU forward. France faces the risk of a far-right majority in parliament, while Germany's government has been further weakened.

Brothers of Italy, led by the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, was a big winner, too, scoring 28%. But outside those big three member states - and Austria, where FPÖ, as long predicted, finished first on 26% - the hard right's scores often underwhelmed.