Please tell me this headline is wrong.. (Exit poll news from Italy)

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

Le Pen is first? my Italian is crap.

Anne, you are correct in that she isn't just a flash in the pan.

I used to live near Marseille, OYBBK, it was quite scary seeing the amount of support her dad had.

God it's so depressing. Partly the fault of the Euro elite for failing to engage with the people... But how on earth can 25% of French voters back the FN? Even my insanely right-wing and frankly racist French relatives think the FN are a Bit Much.

I really can't imagine what decisions will now be taken in the European Parliament with these parties in attendance. Will they make very right wing decisions or just block everything? ( or as in UKIP's case, not turn up but just trouser the money )

It is so bloody depressing and I'm starting to feel fearful for the future.

I'm mildly surprised but not completely shocked at the French result. From what I've seen, and I spend a reasonable amount of time there, the tension between the French and immigrants has really hit boiling point - if you think the UK is bad in that respect you ain't seen nothing yet! Whether this tension is due to genuine or perceived issues I don't know, I think like most things it's probably a mixture of both. In recent years the destructive rioting by first or second generation immigrants is probably the best example of these kind of conflicts. At the moment, the UK is not at this stage (I hope).

Yorkshire. Ukip, labour, con, ukip, lab, ukip

SW - ukip, con, ukip, con, lab, green.

First green of the night.

Wales - lab, ukip, con, plaid cymru

No change in seats in Wales but big increase in Ukip vote.

At some point I need to go to bed.
So wish they could sort out count timings so that results are declared shortly after the 10pm deadline!

Baffled that the Welsh have voted for ukip second. Just baffled.

Agree that we've had to sit on the papers for 72 hours before counting. Plays into the anti Europe hands fgs!

It's ridiculous!
Waiting for one more deceleration then I'm off. It's pretty clear what the result will be anyway.

I give up. Goodnight :(

Goodnight

It looks like several European nations have treated the election as a referendum on Europe's performance over the Eurozone crisis and have reverted to petty nationalism and xenophobia. UKIP's success is typical of this simplistic blame game and I find it depressing .

How the hell is an EU going to function when populated by huge numbers of politicians who don't think it should even exist? Not to mention the consequences of a Europe where nationalistic extremists have ballot box legitimacy.

Europe reporting turnout as 43.1% (source BBC News ) so whilst these results are still shocking, they are still representing small numbers.

Overall - the main centre right/left parties are still leading overall in terms of seats in the EP.

It's not that they really want to be in Brussels imo, Maryz. They just want to be elected to any political forum they can be elected to. They will never be selected to run for the Dail in any organised political party and they can't afford the campaigning. They see the EU elections as a way to thumb their noses at local parties. Meanwhile, solid candidates for the EU elections are thin on the ground as the nod to run for Brussels is seen as being put out to grass and a massive hiccup in your political ambitions.

Moon 25% of French voters didn't vote for Le Pen! There was 60% abstinence, so only 40% of French voters actually bothered turning up to vote. A quarter of them voted FN - i.e. just 10% of the population.

Still worrying but very much a minority!

What's more concerning is why so many people abstained. I honestly think most people see the European elections as a bit irrelevant and have no idea what the European parliament actually does.

That and the fact that we've only just finished with local and regional elections and people are sick of having to modify their weekend plans to fit in voting. I think that's the first issue the government should be looking at...

It is a depressing thing to wake up to. I too partially blame those who didn't vote. As my 14 year old dd said last night it is those who are more extreme who are more likely to vote. The problem is that people don't think Europe is important and now this is what has happened.

So this coming year I think the message needs to be - just bloody vote.

In ireland too.. when you have austerity budgets which are hitting less well off disproportionately of coyrse you will have increase in left or right rather tgan centrist parties.

However I think the pol parties in power currently would do well not to dismiss everything as a protest vote. Mostly this attitude comes from sitting ministers, TDs (MP) s eager to explain away their position to their own backbenchers and members.

I would expect both sinn féin particularly and the left vote to persist. Personally I think that's a good thing. Given the way the three parties who've been in power previously have run things.

It is depressing and makes me feel uneasy. I did vote and definitely not for ukip. However it is time to have a proper re-evaluation of europe, how far it goes and how it functions.

All this 'if you don't agree with it you're ignorant' stuff on mn is just not true. I have a degree in economics and for example the theory of optimum currency areas one of the assumptions of free movement of labour are a common language and full labour mobility. We have neither - different languages and qualifications for jobs.

The simple fact is that statistics are usually a load of nonsense - you can find them to back up pretty much anything. I really hope the people in charge see this as a warning that things just aren't working. To automatically label any such discussion as 'racist' plays into the hands of these nasty extremists :-(