dpa
Warsaw
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk issued a warning on Monday following far-right gains in the first round of the French parliamentary elections.
“They like Putin, money and power without control. They rule or are reaching for power in the east and west of Europe,” Tusk posed on X.
He warned that right-wing populists would join forces in the European Parliament.
“In Poland, we reversed this disastrous course of events at the last minute. Let’s not waste this,” he added.
A centre-left government took power led by Tusk in Poland in December following elections in October, in which the nationalist conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS) lost power after ruling the country since 2015. PiS policies on justice in particular caused conflict with the European Union and with Germany, Poland’s powerful western neighbour.
The French far-right nationalists are clearly leading the first round of the early parliamentary elections, based on provisional results from the Interior Ministry on Monday.
Marine Le Pen’s party, National Rally (RN), and its allies achieved 33.15 percent of the votes. The left-wing New Popular Front (NPF) alliance stands at 27.99 percent, while President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist Ensemble (Together) alliance comes in at 20.04 percent. The conservative Republicans scored 10.23 percent.
According to figures from the Ipsos opinion research institute after the first round of the vote, National Rally received a particularly high number of votes from working-class voters and people without higher educational qualifications.
It also scored points with its traditional electorate but also expanded its voter base overall, gaining significantly more support from women and people under 35, Ipsos said.
Macron’s camp primarily received votes from senior citizens and the financially better-off. According to Ipsos, Macron’s alliance lost votes across the entire electorate and not just within specific groups.
The NPF was primarily chosen by younger people, people in larger cities and those with higher educational qualifications.
