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In France, Exit Polls Show Marine Le Pen's National Rally Holding Steady; Voter Turnout of 49% to 52%; Marine Le Pen's National Rally Now Understood to be Coming in at About 25% of the Vote; Social Democratic Party Leading in Sweden with 23.6% According to the Swedish Election Authority. Aired 5-6p ET
Aired May 26, 2019 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[17:00:00] Announcer: This is CNN breaking news.
HALA GORANI, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT, CNN INTERNATIONAL: Good evening. I'm Hala Gorani, we are live from Brussels, as results continue to come in and projections in this European election continue to come in. Hundreds of millions of people were eligible to vote in this particular election.
And according to EU numbers, they have done just that, with the numbers of people voting, the highest in 20 years. And we're keeping an eye on some of the big trends from these results. Firstly, these populist parties. In France, Marine Le Pen's National Rally is holding steady. Exit polls showing them to have a higher percentage than Emmanuel Macron's party, but slightly less than what they won in 2014. Still for Macron, this could be seen as a big disappointment, even a loss.
Results for green parties have greatly improved with big gains in Germany and more projected seats in other countries. We'll take you through that.
This hour, we are getting our first official results from nine different countries. Here's a look at how the European Union is projecting parliament to look. However, it's important to note things are changing all the time. We'll get an updated look at these seats soon in a few minutes. We'll getter first Europe-wide results, stay tuned for that.
And the big question is going to have to be, this hour and in the coming hours, these big establishment parties, the pro-EU parties, how are they faring versus some of the Euro skeptic populist, some of the Far Right parties in some European countries, we'll take a look at all of that.
We have reporters are fanned out across the continent this evening. Erin McLaughlin is here in Brussels. Melissa Bell is in Paris. Atika Shubert is in Berlin. Nina dos Santos is in Southampton, England where the newly Brexit Party is hoping to win big. Barbie Nadeau is keeping an eye on developments in Rome for us.
So we'll get to all of our reporters in just a moment. First, I'm going to start with Erin McLaughlin, talk to us a little about these projections, if we could put up possibly that graphic on the screen and give us an idea of what it tells us so far.
ERIN MCLAUGHLIN, INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, CNN: First and foremost, Hala, big story here at the European parliament election headquarters for this evening is that voter turnout figure.
Projections showing a voter turnout of 49% to 52%. That is significant, especially when you consider voter turnout in 2014 was 42%. It's the largest turnout since 1994. And also the first time in the history of these elections that voter turnout actually increased.
And I can tell you, the number that EU officials were anticipating, they wanted to see if that turnout would spike. It's seen as a measure of the overall health of the European project, how important these elections are perceived to Europeans. That number telling us that they're being perceived as more important than years past.
Now, in terms of the trends that we're seeing, based on preliminary projections, which are in flux, we're expecting the final projections to be released shortly. But the preliminary projections show that the so-called grand coalition of the Center Right and Center Left groups, the way in which most of the legislation has been pushed through parliament in the past is via this grand coalition.
That grand coalition lost its majority for the first time, and it's down some 81 seats. In its place, we're seeing the rise of smaller groupings like the ALDE, the En Marche! grouping, they gained 33 seats. The Green Party, which is for climate change policies, as well as seen as a very pro-European party, that gained 19 seats as well.
We're also seeing gains with Euro-skeptic groupings, the ESED (ph) grouping, which includes Nigel Farage's Brexit Party as well as the AFC (ph) there in Germany. That increased its seats by some 14. So some gains with Euro-skeptic groupings as well.
GORANI: All right, let's head over to Paris. Melissa Bell is there. In this European election, I was just in Paris a few hours ago, and many of the people who are out voting said to me this is kind of a referendum on whether or not we support the idea of the EU. Macron, the President, very much embodied that campaign. The fact that Le Pen seems to be doing better according to exit polls than him by a few percentage, what does that tell us, Melissa?
MELISSA BELL, CORRESPONDENT, CNN: Hala, I think you're exactly right. I think because France's political landscape was so transformed by Emmanuel Macron two years ago and we saw it again tonight by the figures that were scored by the two parties who'd essentially shared power since 1958, the Socialists and the Republicans on 3% of the Socialists, 8% Republicans, according to the exit polls, it's a totally transformed scene.
[17:05:00] And that's allowed Emmanuel Macron, it has allowed an electoral test perhaps like no other in Europe tonight where you have a pro-European liberal, I'm sorry, Emmanuel Macron who based his entire project on that pro-European, anti-populist drive, unlittered in a sense by some of the considerations among some of the older and more traditional parties that are standing tonight in Europe against a populist, fairly Euro-skeptic but not always a right wing party here in Frane, Marine Le Pen's.
And the two of them went head to head. And what we saw throughout the polls these last few weeks, Hala, was that they were very close. Tonight, according to the exit polls, Marine Le Pen's party is two points ahead of Emmanuel Macron's and that would be a massive blow to the French President.
GORANI: All right, Melissa. Atika Shubert joins me now with more. The Greens make something big gains across Europe, particularly in Germany. That's good news for them.
ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they were really the sort of the big winners of the night, gaining at least according to exit polls, more than 20% of the vote. That's a change of 11 percentage points. So that's a very big win for them.
The big losers were really the centrist parties, the Christian Democrats and especially the Social Democrats did very badly. They lost a lot of votes. I mean, still the CDU, the Christian Democrats, still maintain the most votes overall. But the fact that they lost nearly 7 percentage points is bad, and the Social Democrats 12 percentage points, it's one of their worst results ever.
Now, what's interesting is the case of the Far Right party, the AfD or Alternative for Germany. Some people had expected they would do better. They did gain about 3 percentage points, but they seem to have hit a ceiling of 10%. So they could have done - they should have done better really judging by national elections, but they just can't seem to break through.
GORANI: All right, thanks very much, Atika Shubert. We'll catch up with you again a little bit later, once these numbers firm up a little bit. These are preliminary projections. We're still waiting importantly for, I don't know if we should say importantly, especially since many believe the UK now is really headed for Brexit.
But what's happened in the UK with this newly formed Brexit Party headed by Nigel Farage, the Euro-skeptic in chief, who campaigned for Brexit so vigorously in 2016, back in politics. And Nina dos Santos is there in Southampton where the votes are being counted. When do we expect an announcement, Nina, for these European elections? Because I understand some parts of the United Kingdom will start counting only tomorrow.
NINA DOS SANTOS, EUROPE EDITOR, CNN: That's right. There seems to be some confusion over when the UK will have its final results. But I can tell you that we're probably expecting them tomorrow, but early here in Southampton, just when you were speaking in fact to Atika, we got some early exit poll numbers.
And I can tell you that this district, which encompasses a huge part of the United Kingdom, it has ten members of the European parliament up for grabs, has actually seen one of the biggest counts for the Brexit Party. They've just swept the floor with around about 17,500 votes here. That's several thousand more than the Conservative Party at least by the early numbers that I was able to gauge behind me a couple of minutes ago.
And really, this is where they're eating ground into what was traditional Conservative Party heartland. The real question is we're going to hear from Nigel Farage in about a half an hour's time on stage is how they're going to try and capture that message in Brussels and take those seats right the way to Westminster to change the two party dynamics in the UK. Hala?
GORANI: Excellent. Nina, thanks very much.
Barbie Nadeau in Rome, a quick word from you, because Italy is also an extremely interesting battleground here. Tell us more about what you know.
BARBIE NADEAU, CNN: It is absolutely interesting. And the polls have just closed here across Italy and it's really looking like those projections are right, that Matteo Salvini's far right league party is going to be the strongest. We've seen some exit polls saying 27%, 28%, 29%, even up to 31%.
What's most astonishing though is the fact that in 2014, he just got 6% in these European parliamentary elections, and that shows you how much this country has changed and how strong he has become as a political force here, Hala.
GORANI: Barbie, thanks very much. Quick bit of breaking news, the Greek Prime Minister has called a snap election after disappointing results from his party in the European elections. So already, we're feeling and seeing and observing consequences of some of these establishment parties or in the case of Greece, the Prime Minister's party doing poorly in these elections.
[17:10:00] I'm now joined by David McAllister, a German member of the European Parliament. Thanks for being with us. So, first of all, let's talk a little bit about your expectations for your party in these elections. What have you seen?
DAVID MCALLISTER, MEMBER OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: Well, the European People's Party will remain the strongest political force here in the European parliament. But, of course, losing around about 40 seats is disappointing. We were fighting for more. We were hoping for more.
But now, we are still the strongest political force and now it's up to us to sit down with the other pro-European democratic constructive forces in this parliament to form a stable majority in this parliament for the next five years.
GORANI: You had 217 seats going in. Where do you expect to be tomorrow?
MCALLISTER: The polls show that we'll be around about 175, 177, 180 seats. The last results are now coming in. Of course, we wanted to do better, but--
GORANI: Why didn't you do better? Why are some of these fringe parties, the Far Right parties, the anti-EU MEPs coming in here in a few weeks, why have they done better?
MCALLISTER: Well, on the one hand, there's one European election result. But in reality, it's 28 national results and we have very different developments. We have some countries where the EPP improved. Our sister parties improved their results like in Ireland, for instance. But you could see for instance in my home country, Germany, that the Green Party is the big winner of this election. They gained a lot of votes from our party, and this will require a very thorough analysis.
GORANI: Right. So the parties that have a clear position on the EU, whether they hate it or love it, I mean in the case of the greens, Europhiles, unabashedly, the Brexit Party and others like it, obviously have a clear message as well, and those are parties on the margins.
The establishment parties are the ones that are again getting pummeled. This is a theme that we're seeing not just in the European election, but also in Presidential elections, in parliamentary elections in western countries. What's going on? Why have you not escaped that trend?
MCALLISTER: Well, you're talking to a German Christian Democrat, and the German Christian Democrats are passionately in favor of European cooperation. We're the European party in Germany. We're the party of Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl and Angela Merkel.
We were campaigning with the message Europe has to be bigger on big things and smaller on small things. The European Union has to tackle the challenges which cannot be solved at a national or regional level. So we were arguing that we need to improve the way the European Union works. But obviously, the greens were better in getting their message across the electorate in Germany. But still, we have the strongest political party with more than 28%, so we have done our share that the European People's Party is still the strongest party.
GORANI: What do you need to change, because you need to change something if this trend is to be reversed and you want to go back to the strength you had before. What do you need to change?
MCALLISTER: The idea of European cooperation, the whole project of the European Union is being challenged by radicals, nationalists and demagogues from the Far Right and the Far Left. And what we have to make clear is that these demagogues are giving very simple answers to very complex questions and that we have to make clear that our future lies in a closer European cooperation in a globalized world of the 21st century.
What we have to do now is stick together as the pro-European democratic forces of the center, because we mustn't allow radicals from the Far Right and the Far Left gain influence in the European parliament. GORANI: So you believe someone like Farage is a radical?
MCALLISTER: Well, Nigel Farage is a demagogue, because he campaigned for Brexit, a campaign based on lies, on terrible lies. I personally believe that leaving the European Union is an awful mistake. But if Brexit has to happen, then let's get it done in an orderly manner. We didn't ask for this divorce, if the British want to leave, let's remain good neighbors and partners.
GORANI: Your newly formed parliament will probably be the best performing party in the UK in this election. So you'll have - they are going to take their seats because if Brexit happens, I mean most likely it will happen 31st of October, perhaps even later than that, we don't know, but not sooner, it looks like. But they're going to be taking their seats here.
MCALLISTER: Yes.
GORANI: How do you negotiate those relationships?
MCALLISTER: But as a Democrat, I have to accept the vote in the United Kingdom like I accept any democratic decision. But even if Nigel Farage's Brexit Party is the number one party in the UK, it still means that other parties have more votes than he does, and the pro- Europeans in the United Kingdom will also, I guess, get a good result tonight, once the results are coming in. And this shows once again how divided the United Kingdom is on this issue.
GORANI: Right, and other countries, I mean Matteo Salvini, we just heard from our reporter there also, the political forces that lifted him up in Italy also it looks like doing very well in this election. So Italy is not the UK, this is a founding member. It's a much bigger deal, isn't it? As far as you are concerned.
[17:15:00] MCALLISTER: Yes, but if you look at the numbers and you were just showing the new composition of the European parliament, the moderate democratic pro-European forces have a majority.
They have a broad majority, but it's up to us now to talk about content. We have to sit down and negotiate what is our plan for the next five years. And I strongly believe, if we deliver good results on European politics, we can regain confidence among voters who are at the moment voting for radicals, nationalists and populists.
GORANI: David McAllister, thank you so much for joining us, really appreciate your time. Just one word, who do you think will become the next President of parliament?
MCALLISTER: Spitzenkandidat, and our Spitzenkandidat is Manfred Weber. I believe that he could do an excellent job leading the next European Commission.
GORANI: Manfred Weber, okay hopefully we'll be able to talk with him tonight or tomorrow. Thanks so much, appreciate it. We'll be back in a few minutes with some results that will show just how the European parliament will look after these elections. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GORANI: Rosa Balfour, Senior Fellow at the Europe program, The German Fund joins me now. And we are going to need your help here on some of these numbers. For one thing, our viewers, even those very interested in what happens in the European Union, probably are not familiar with this alphabet soup of acronyms. So, talk to us, let's put up the graphic. Talk to us about what the big takeaway is from these projections.
ROSA BALFOUR, SENIOR TRANSATLANTIC FELLOW, THE GERMAN MARSHALL FUND: Yes. Well, first of all, the two large parties that have dominated the European parliament, that's the European People's Party, which is the center right, and the Socialists and Democrats, to the center left.
They've both have taken quite a big hit. That's the first takeaway. The greens are doing very well. The liberals are also doing very well, but they're benefiting from the Macron phenomenon, because the European parliament is considering those elected in France will go in the ALDE group. And then, of course, the Far Right. The Far Right is also doing very well.
GORANI: Where do we see the Far Right on this graphic?
BALFOUR: Far Right is ENF, the blue one, 57 seats according to these projections.
GORANI: Where does the Brexit Party go?
BALFOUR: The Brexit Party goes in the EFDD. So that's 56 seats as well. So that is up again from 42 in the previous parliament.
GORANI: So, if you take those two together, if you take all the Euro- skeptic victories here, where does that take us, out of 751?
BALFOUR: Okay, that takes us to a stronger Euro skeptic group, two groups at the moment. There's some talk of regrouping, we'll see how that works. But it's not going to upset the actual decision making in the European parliament. There's still a pro-European majority.
[17:20:00] They could, because they're strengthened, they could be more successful in putting the spanner in the works of the European parliament. So far, most of these Far Right populist parties have actually performed rather poorly compared to their numbers.
They haven't been very cohesive, they've voted - they're splintered, they're very divided. So it could - these results could embolden them to be more active inside the parliament--
GORANI: And cooperating as well potentially?
BALFOUR: Exactly. And we're seeing signs of this with Salvini, Le Pen. They've promised to form a larger group teaming up with a number of Far Right parties across Europe.
GORANI: And this is a good illustration of just how this is a continental election, but certainly is a reflection of the national particularities of each country.
BALFOUR: Yes.
GORANI: So that it's more difficult for these even Euro-skeptic parties to coalesce together?
BALFOUR: So ultimately, given that, especially on the Far Right, they ultimately are nationalists. That in itself stifles any attempt to cooperate. Now, they're committing to do this. They're trying to overcome their differences.
But when it comes to how much money the EU should spend on regional funds or when it comes to building walls to keep the migrants out, which is what these parties want to do, they will be prioritizing their national interest. So, it's going to be difficult for them to cooperate with others if their national interests clash, which they do in most cases.
GORANI: But then oftentimes as we saw with Hungary for instance and other countries, those initiatives are taken in contravention of EU directives and rules, and really the parliament I imagine in the case of things like building walls and fences doesn't even enter into the equation, or if it does, doesn't have the impact that it would like.
BALFOUR: In the parliament, no. The big question mark as to what's going to happen with Fidesz, which is the party in power in Hungary and whether it will stay in the European People's Party, because now that party is actually more influential in the European People's Party. It has been suspended because of the rule of law problems in Hungary, and we need to see. It will depend very much on their results here and the results of the other Far Right groups where that party will go.
GORANI: A couple of more questions. The greens did well, why?
BALFOUR: Well, I think the first point, obviously, the climate crisis. There's been a lot of media attention. A lot of young people have been very - have been mobilized also by the student marches, et cetera. So that would be the first reason.
The second reason is greens do - tend to do quite well in the European parliament. It's a kind of natural constituency for them, and I guess people feel it's safe to vote green in the European parliament. They might vote differently in national elections, and then of course every country has its own--
GORANI: But I wonder, the establishment parties and those that have a majority, would it benefit them to ally themselves because I had the head of the Green Party here in the European parliament a few hours ago. These greens, as you said, they reach the younger people, they've got motivated campaigners. Would it benefit them to form alliances, the establishment parties with the greens?
BALFOUR: Well, I think the greens can play kingmakers here. The establishment parties are all taking a hit in these elections. And what is likely to happen in the next European parliament that there will be movable coalitions, depending on the issues.
So the greens are more likely to side with parties that are going to take on the environmentalist agenda seriously. So far we've seen that Timmermans, who is the candidate - the spitzenkandidat for the socialists and democratic group, he's been courting the greens and he's been pushing for a greener agenda.
So, on all those matters, that's a likely coalition. But on other matters, there might be other coalitions that will have a majority. So, it's going to be more variable, but the greens can definitely play their cards well and be very influential.
GORANI: All right, Rosa Balfour, thanks very much of The German Marshall Fund. We really appreciate your time and analysis. We'll also a little bit later talk - hopefully we'll be able to talk a bit again about the collapse of the socialist parties in some countries, a really dreadful performance for them.
We'll be back in a few minutes with much more. Stay with us.
[17:25:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GORANI: Welcome back. Let's bring in Atika Shubert who is in Berlin, and we were discussing with our guest, Atika, that greens did very well in Germany. But of course, there's disappointment for the establishment parties. It's a theme we're seeing over and over again across the continent. Talk to us about the projections in Germany, Atika.
SHUBERT: Yes, the greens did very well. And what's interesting here is that it does seem to have really been something with having to do with the Greta Effect, Greta Thunberg being the Swedish teenage climate activist who has galvanized tens of thousands of teenagers across the world, but particularly here in Germany.
This was this huge push last Friday to get the vote out. And we actually spoke to one of the main climate activist (inaudible) about it. And she said they want to make this election the climate election. It seems like they succeeded.
A recent - a poll by the ZDF, the national broadcaster here, showed that 33% of respondents under the age of 30 voted for the Green Party. Once you get to voters over the age of 60, that reverses. They vote more for the conservative party, the Christian Democrats.
So there was clearly a generational push for the greens here. So that seems to be the story of the night. However, there were also gains made by the AfD, the far right Alternative for Germany party. They were much smaller gains, however, and they actually did not gain as much as had been expected. So the populists here in Germany still managed to some but not as much as you might have thought.
GORANI: All right, Atika Shubert, live in Berlin, thanks very much. So, as Atika was mentioning there, the big headlines emerging from this are that the greens did well in France, the battle there, the election was seen as a race between Emmanuel Macron's very pro-EU party and Marine Le Pen.
It appears according to projections that Marine Le Pen's National Rally, Rassemblement National, which has replaced the National Front, did better than Emmanuel Macron. So that could be seen perhaps since he invested himself so much into this as a failure for Macron. But also, we're waiting to see what happens in the UK, because as many of you know who have been following the Brexit story, Nigel Farage came back roaring after saying he wanted to retire from politics and created a party that was very much leading in the polls.
So we'll see how that vote count goes from the UK. We'll be back, much more on our crucial story, election, after the break. Stay with us.
[17:30:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GORANI: We're bringing you live coverage from Brussels and across Europe, as European parliament elections results roll in. Turnout has been high across the continent, the highest in 20 years potentially, and we've just got our first Europe-wide results.
The story of the night so far is that early projections show it's been a bad one for Center Right and Center Left parties. Far Right parties have made gains and the greens are on track to be the fourth largest party in the new European parliament.
In the UK, the newly formed Brexit Party is hoping to continue the success story there, but counting continues in that country which is on its way to Brexiting. I'm joined by Pieter Cleppe who's head of the Brussels office for Open Europe. Thanks for being with us. What's your big headline tonight so far?
PIETER CLEPPE, HEAD OF BRUSSELS OFFICE OF OPEN EUROPE: Well, I think what everybody expected happened. So the two main parties, the mainstream parties, they lost their majority, but they are likely to just be able to continue with what will probably be the group of the French president, Emmanuel Macron. Now, we've seen another massive victory of the anti-establishment Euro skeptics, but still a victory. They are still making headway.
GORANI: You are saying it's not massive but they're making headway.
CLEPPE: Yes, correct.
GORANI: Is that significant in terms of how the parliament will operate, how it will deal with important questions and decisions?
CLEPPE: Well, in direct terms, not really. The direct effect of this, I think, will be all in all quite limited simply because they do not have a majority. But indirectly, this is yet another signal coming from voters that they are not happy with the status quo at the EU level and they are not happy with insufficient border protection.
They're not happy with constant attempts to concentrate more power and money in Brussels. For example, the proposals to scrap national vetoes over taxation, over foreign policy. These are proposals being made all the time by the European Commission, I would say directly going against the mood--
GORANI: Will that change some of the proposals, these results, do you think? Because, clearly member states, their voters, are making it clear they don't want more authority taken from their national governments and parliament to - and directed to Brussels. Will that change, do you think, any of these proposals?
CLEPPE: Yes, I think so. I think mainstream politicians will pick up the signal. If you look at opinion polls, a large majority in every single member state is in favor of staying in the EU apart from the UK, of course.
But then people are also dissatisfied. You can see very high levels of dissatisfaction. So what is the response, I think? Mainstream parties just need to go for European Union that focuses on its core business, which is open up barriers to trade and all this grand plans--
GORANI: And not more integration, political integration?
CLEPPE: Exactly.
GORANI: Yes, but when you say all countries apart from the UK because we saw it with the Brexit referendum, according to polls are usually pro staying in the EU. I do wonder, and this is always an if and hypothetical and you can't know for sure, but if you had a referendum in Italy, for instance today, in or out, there would be a risk, wouldn't there?
[17:35:00] CLEPPE: I'm not so sure to be honest. Also the complication in Italy is also that the country is a member of the Eurozone. It's very hard to leave that military construct. But take Poland for example. A few years ago, there was an opinion poll showing that 95% of Polish people were in favor of EU membership.
But at the same time, the country is on a collision course with Brussels over judicial reforms. So I think that's a good illustration of sort of the divide--
GORANI: Well, the benefits are clear to the polls and some of the obligations seem to be less willingly embraced.
CLEPPE: It's not only about the money, it's also about the money, but I do think that Central and Eastern European people think that they are really at home in the EU, that this really enshrines their countries into the west. But I think they, for example, they're not happy with things like migration quota. And every country is very sensitive to decide how many migrants should be able to enter. So, if you impose that, it's not going to go well.
GORANI: Pieter Cleppe, thanks very much. Really appreciate your time. Let's go to France. We were talking with Pieter about what happened with Marine Le Pen's National Rally party. She is celebrating, Melissa Bell, this evening. Tell us more.
BELL: And she is celebrating, Hala, the fresh figures that have just come in. We've been talking so far this evening about the exit polls that came out just after 8 p.m. and that were then refined. We're now hearing the first official, if partial, results for the time being from the Ministry of the Interior, and the defeat for Emmanuel Macron is even worse than he and his party will have feared.
Marine Le Pen's National Rally now understood to be coming in at about 25% of the vote. Emmanuel Macron's La Republique En Marche! party coming at 21% of the vote. So, that is a substantial defeat and worse than we believed earlier this evening.
He had, Hala, invested so much time and personal energy and political capital in this campaign. The first electoral test you'll remember since he totally transformed the landscape a couple of years ago here in France, and this was not the result he was hoping to see, Hala.
GORANI: All right. And I believe we've heard from Marine Le Pen. What did she have to say? What did she have to tell her supporters?
BELL: It was a triumphant speech, as you'd expect. She had also put a lot of herself in this campaign and really presented it as a referendum on Emmanuel Macron's leadership. She wanted to capitalize very clearly on the anger that we've seen out in the streets of France in the last few months, the Yellow Vest protests, and apparently she managed to do that. So by the time she got up on stage, let's just have a listen to what she had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARINE LE PEN, PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL FRONT (Translated): The trust that the French people have given to us by choosing us as the first party, but as the future alternative power is an immense honor, and we measure the responsibility that comes with it.
Given the democratic disavow suffered by the establishment power tonight, it will be up to the President now to join the consequences. He who put his Presidential legitimacy in his vote made it a referendum on his policy and even on himself. He has no other choice then, at the very least, to dissolve the National Assembly and choose a voting system that is more democratic and finally more representative of the real opinion of the country.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BELL: So Marine Le Pen there delivering a triumphant and very strong message to Emmanuel Macron, again very focalized on the person of the President himself and hoping to pick up on what had become a characteristic of that Yellow Vest anger. She believes this is a vindication of her policies and a sign that two years after his astonishing defeat in the Presidential election, Emmanuel Macron has simply run out of political steam. Hala?
GORANI: All right, thanks very much, Melissa. We'll catch up with you later.
Barbie Nadeau, Matteo Salvini has tweeted saying, thank you number one, in Italian. Let's put up that tweet. A good night for Matteo Salvini.
NADEAU: That's right. And I think a lot of people were expecting this sort of a result. And he's going to be using this very much as he promised as a referendum on himself and on his government. This ruling coalition has only been in power since last June and he's really been ruling with an iron fist.
And a lot of analysts say that he's going to use success in these elections as a way to sort of pull the plug on the government and perhaps call new elections here as well. Of course, it's too soon to say that, we haven't got the final results, but he is clearly celebrating already, Hala.
[17:40:00] GORANI: All right. And he's holding up that sign, I hadn't seen the tweets. I'm just discovering it alongside our viewers. I think it was just a few minutes ago. So, what does this mean for Italy, I guess, Italy's relationship with its big European partners, France, Germany, for instance.
NADEAU: Well, Matteo Salvini has really campaigned for these European parliamentary elections on a sort of pseudo-euro skepticism. But all the while, he's doing it especially with regard to immigration, and we know Italy has had a long problem with immigration.
All the while he's been doing this, he says he needs European cooperation with regard to immigration. So he is sort of playing it on both sides of the fence, where he's very, very skeptical but at the same time he's saying he's looking for cooperation and he will push for that.
I think this is a leader that really has come to power quickly. In 2014, he only got 6% of the vote in these European parliamentary elections. He's going to be testing the system. But it's incredible to think how far he's come and how much his popularity has grown in just five years, Hala.
GORANI: All right. Thanks, Barbie. Let's get to the UK. Nina dos Santos is in Southampton. That is where we are expecting the vote count to happen there in that part of the UK. And Nigel Farage is an MEP for a constituency not far from where you are. So, are we expecting him to make an appearance tonight?
DOS SANTOS: Yes, we've seen a very furtive Nigel Farage probably enter this building, not commenting too much to the press saying he wouldn't speculate until the results are in. But you are right, this is one of the biggest seats in delivering ten members of the European parliament. And Nigel Farage himself has actually served one of these constituencies here as an MEP since 1999.
So he's a veteran of delivering his euro skeptic message, one which has played out well in this part of the United Kingdom, very disparate and diverse counties. It takes about 9 million people, 52% of people on average in this region voted to leave in the 2016 referendum.
And the UK Independence Party was Nigel Farage's former party before he decided to give politics a small hiatus before returning to it, and they won about 32.1% of the seats. Now, his Brexit Party, the latest incarnation of the (inaudible) is also set to take away votes from the Conservative Party.
I'm delighted to say I'm here with a Conservative Party member of the European parliament candidate, Adrian pepper. It's going to be your party that's going to be losing out over Brexit, isn't it, to people like Mr. Farage?
ADRIAN PEPPER, BRITISH CONSERVATIVE MEMBER OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: Well I think we're certainly going to pay the price this evening for not having delivered Brexit on time.
The electorate that we went to go to see when we rang them up and knocked on their doors told that clearly too us that we hadn't delivered Brexit and they had been expecting us to do so. So I think we will lose votes as a result to the Brexit parties.
DOS SANTOS: This is also a constituency that's home to one of the Conservative Party's most vocal euro-skeptics, Daniel Hannan. How do you think your party is going to fare this evening when the results come in?
PEPPER: Well I think it will be a great pity if Daniel did lose out as a result of the chaos that took place at Westminster. So that's no reflection whatsoever on his competence. He's been articulating the euro skeptic case extremely clearly. And in fact, he's probably the intellectual father of Brexit, having been making the case for well over 25 years within the Conservative Party.
DOS SANTOS: How much of a bloody nose would the Conservative Party get here in a constituency like this?
PEPPER: Well I think we're certainly going to see a significant drop on our vote compared to the elections five years ago. We'll have to see just how bad that is, but I do expect it to be a very difficult night for the conservatives.
But I must say it's going to be an extremely difficult night for Labor as well. The Conservatives were at the crescendo of their leadership crisis when this vote took place on Thursday. Labor have been in leadership crisis for many, many months under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn and we expect them to suffer just as badly.
DOS SANTOS: Well indeed, you could even say that the whole two-party system in the UK is coming under crisis. People like Nigel Farage at the other end of the political spectrum, Change UK, want another referendum, eating away at the traditional two-party political system. Where would that leave your party in Westminster.
PEPPER: I don't accept the premise of that. I think that Westminster elections are very different to European elections. The votes on Thursday were very much protest votes against the failure to deliver Brexit. So I expect many of the people who are natural conservatives, who supported the conservatives in the general election, will do so again in the next general election, and although they may have chosen to vote for the Brexit Party this time around. [17:45:00] DOS SANTOS: In one name, your favorite for the Conservative
Party leadership?
PEPPER: There are so many good candidates for the Conservative Party leadership. We are going to have a really good debate over the coming few weeks about what kind of a direction we want our party to go in and who is going to be the best person to take us through Brexit on the 31st of October and take the country forward beyond that.
DOS SANTOS: Adrian Pepper, thank you very much for that. That's one of several candidates who's a candidate of the Member of the European Parliament, Hala, for the Conservative Party which is expected to have to suffer a significant loss in this part of the UK to the Brexit Party. Hala?
GORANI: Nina, thanks very much. I believe we have heard from Nigel Farage of the Brexit Party. Let's listen to what he had to say after these projections were revealed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NIGEL FARAGE, LEADER, BREXIT PARTY: As both of the parties have suffered very heavily tonight. In Labor's case, they are losing votes to us and they are losing votes to the mid terms (ph).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who are you hoping to see do worse?
FARAGE: I hope they both do terribly.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What message does it send?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GORANI: All right, there Nigel Farage reacting to these projections and saying that the Conservatives and the Labor Party performed poorly in these European elections. Not a surprise, if any of you watched the program this week, I did interview a Member of the European Parliament running as a Conservative. And he said the Conservative Party did not give him a dime for his campaign and he was self-funding it. So, perhaps not a huge surprise that the Conservatives have not done great.
We'll be back in a few minutes with much more on our story. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GORANI: I'm joined again by Rosa Balfour, Senior Fellow of the Europe Program at The German Marshall Fund. So, we're getting some interesting numbers, Rosa, from Sweden. The Social Democratic Party leading in Sweden with 23.6% according to the Swedish Election Authority. The Far Right Sweden Democrats has made big gains though, increasing their score from 9.67% in 2014 to 15.5% in 2019. Your take- away from that?
BALFOUR: Yes. Well, I mean the Far Right, it was to be expected that the Far Right would do well. In fact, I would say it's not perhaps doing quite as well as predicted. It's doing well in some countries, so Sweden is one of them, France is another one, Italy is another one.
So I think these successes need to be understood also in the national context, and the way they relate to national politics. That would be the first important point to make.
GORANI: And then you have the greens. Because I find the greens to be a very interesting phenomenon, because in national politics, they're often seen as a fringe party. But in European politics, and maybe you can explain why, they usually do well. I mean, although there's been so much more awareness of climate change just in the last year, perhaps that's part of it too.
BALFOUR: For sure that's one reason for which the greens are doing so well. Another reason, I think what we're seeing generally is great dissatisfaction with politics. And the greens, even though they have been around for 40 years, but they do represent a different way of doing politics.
They have very strong candidates. They have promoted lots of women. There are lots of younger people in their list.
[17:50:00] So they present themselves as doing politics differently, which I think is very attractive, especially to the younger voters. The turnout has also gone up. We can perhaps assume that many more young people have voted, those who have come of age, who have been able to vote this time.
Many of those votes probably did go for the greens. And finally, the European parliament is an ideal place for the greens because they have such a transnational agenda, climate change. And of course, the European parliament is the most transnational parliament, the only transnational parliament in the world.
GORANI: But as I was telling our viewers, I was in Paris just a few hours ago, I was having lunch and a lot of the people I was having lunch with intended on voting after the lunch. They saw it as their duty this time around, when five years ago, I'm sure they were slightly less motivated or not motivated at all, because they saw this as some sort of mini referendum on whether or not they supported Europe.
BALFOUR: Yes. There's been a lot of polarization in politics over the past few years. The pro versus anti-EU polarization has taken place. The greens are pro-European pretty much everywhere, but I think it's an indication also of trying to reach out to that pro and anti.
In France, in particular, the - Macron and Le Pen have very much framed it as Macron the pro-EU and Le Pen anti-EU. It's been - it straitjackets people. So I think they've chosen to vote different parties, which have a positive agenda, have a pro European agenda, but they are not necessarily in the frame that's been promoted especially by the populous.
GORANI: Last question, these establishment parties, they have to learn a lesson from this.
BALFOUR: Yes.
GORANI: Are they - are you confident that they will, or does it seem like they are still not accepting the reality that they are being seen as concentrating too much power, not doing enough, all the rest of it?
BALFOUR: I would say they haven't learned it yet, but I'm beginning to see the signs that mainstream parties are beginning to understand this. And so, it won't be necessarily reflected in the upcoming European parliament, but the European parliament precisely because it will be more diverse, more fragmented admittedly, maybe that will be a theater in which these debates will take place and in which mainstream parties also can learn how to engage with citizens.
The problem is, and it hasn't happened over the past few years, it's been a declining trend of party membership, of voter turnout. That has been declining for the past 20, 30 years. Mainstream parties are the ones that have emptied that space, and that space has been picked up by the populists. They need to gain that space again.
GORANI: Rosa Balfour, thanks very much. Appreciate it. We'll be right back.
[17:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GORANI: All right, Erin McLaughlin is with us. She's in the building behind me here with more on these results. And what they mean for the parliament and for the EU, Erin?
MCLAUGHLIN: Yes, that's right, Hala. We're still waiting for the final projections of the evening. But we have received some preliminary results that have been pretty much updated throughout the evening.
But these numbers, I think we can be sure will change. The preliminary results showing an increased fragmentation of the European parliament. The Grand Coalition, what is known as - called the Grand Coalition, an alliance of the Center Right and the Center Left groupings collectively lost their majority within European parliament for the first time.
They're down collectively some 81 seats. Those seats going to other smaller groupings like the liberals, as well as the green party. The greens picking up 19 seats. The liberals which includes Emmanuel Macron's En Marche! was picking up a total of 33 seats.
And this is potentially significant because it could impact the way legislation is passed or approved by parliament going forward, and decisions - specifically that decision for the European Commission President will be influenced by the fragmentation of the European parliament.
We're also seeing a stronger showing for some of the Euro skeptic - for the Euro skeptic groupings that we're still waiting for results out of Italy to see exactly how the Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini did. We do know that his ally Marine Le Pen from the National Rally was
there in France claimed victory over - a narrow victory over the French President Emmanuel Macron.
GORANI: All right, Erin McLaughlin. We'll see you in a little bit. I'm Hala Gorani. More on the other side of this break. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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