Right-wingers notch stunning wins in European Parliament polls

Eurosceptic nationalists and far-right parties on Sunday scored stunning victories in the European Parliament elections in France and Britain, as critics of the European Union more than doubled their seats in a continent-wide protest vote against austerity and unemployment.

France's Prime Minister Manuel Valls today described the result as a "political earthquake" as Marine Le Pen's anti-immigration, anti-euro National Front scored major victories.

The National Front and the UK's Independence Party both performed strongly, while the three big centrist blocs in the EU parliament all lost seats.

The outcome means a greater say for those who want to cut back the EU's powers, or abolish it completely.

But EU supporters will be pleased that the election turnout was slightly higher - it was 43.1 per cent, according to provisional European Parliament figures. That would be the first time turnout had not fallen since the previous election - but would only be an improvement of 0.1 per cent.

Meanwhile European equity futures rose on Monday, as investors shrugged off the victory of France's anti-immigration National Front party in the elections, and focused instead on the fact that the majority of seats would be held by parties supporting the European Union.

In Greece, the radical left anti-austerity Syriza movement of Alexis Tsipras won the vote but failed to deliver a knockout blow to Prime Minister Antonis Samaras' government.

However, even though the number of Eurosceptic members will more than double in the European Parliament, initial results from around the 28-nation bloc showed the pro-European centre-left and centre-right parties will keep control of around 70 per cent of the 751-seat EU legislature.