Extreme right triumphs in French election

The extreme right-wing, europhobic National Front (FN) won the European elections in France with an estimated 25.4 per cent of the vote, according to exit polls. The conservative UMP won an estimated 21 per cent of the vote, the ruling socialist party 14.5 per cent.

Abstention was estimated at 57 per cent, three points lower than in the 2009 elections.

This is the first time the FN has won a national election in France. In a televised address, prime minister Manuel Valls said the results were "grave, extemely grave" and called them "a shock, an earthquake."

Europe had disappointed, Valls said, attempting to shift blame from President Francois Hollande's unpopular administration. He acknowledged that France is going through "a crisis of confidence" and said the country must reform.

If the exit polls are accurate, the FN will have 24 seats in the next European parliament, the UMP 20 seats and the socialists 13 seats. The centrist UDI/Modem should have seven seats, the greens 6 and the Front de gauche three.

The crowd at National Front headquarters in the Paris suburb of Nanterre burst into the Marseillaise when the results were announced. Their flags and placards trumpeted the movement's new status as "first party of France".

In a brief televised address, FN leader Marine Le Pen said, "We were right to have confidence in ourselves. The sovereign people have told those who no longer believe in France that they don't want to be ruled from outside."

The French will “at last be served first in their own country,” Ms Le Pen said. She and her father Jean-Marie, the party’s founder, called on President Hollande to dissolve the National Assembly.

FN leaders were to dine in a restaurant called “Elysée-land” last night. Le Pen believes she can be elected president of France in 2017.

Henceforward, there are three main parties in France instead of two. By trailing the FN, Jean-Francois Copé has probably lost his position as leader of the UMP. He is embroiled in a financial scandal involving close associates who defrauded the party, and is not likely to survive a UMP meeting on Tuesday.

The socialist party is near collapse. Ségolène Royal, the former companion of President Francois Hollande, now France's environment minister, looked crestfallen as she tried to defend the government. The FN's victory was "a shock on a global scale," Royal said. "This evening, the world sees that one in four voters chose a party that is violently anti-Europe… It is wounding to say that France, the country of the Enlightenment, that gave the world a taste for liberty, equality and fraternity, has put a party that wants to demolish Europe in the lead."