I'm glad I'm the age I am. This world is going backwards.

I'm glad I'm the age I am. This world is going backwards.
Doesn't it make you wonder why, in the year when we remember the start of the first world war, and 69 years after the end of the second, so many young and innocent lives had to be sacrificed at the altar of capitalism when we end up with a neo-Nazi party making fools of us all and of the venal politicians of other parties who allowed such apathy to develop among the electorate.

France suffered a political earthquake on Sunday as the far-right Front National topped the polls in European elections with an unprecedented 25% of the vote, with President François Hollande's Socialists in third place behind the centre-right UMP, exit polls indicated.

If the Front National score is confirmed, it will be the first time that the anti-immigrant, anti-EU party led by Marine Le Pen has won a national election and would give the party 23-25 of France's 74 seats in the European Parliament.

The UMP was projected to score around 21% while the ruling Socialists were seen as scoring 14%, down from the 16.5% won last time in 2009.

Le Pen immediately called for the dissolution of the French national assembly after the exit polls showed her anti-immigrant, Eurosceptic party winning . "What else can the president do after such a rejection?" Le Pen told reporters at Front National headquarters when asked if Hollande – whose ruling Socialists were well behind in third place – should dissolve the national parliament.

"It is unacceptable that the assembly should be so unrepresentative of the French people."

From the beginning of the European election campaign Le Pen was insistent that Sunday evening would finally see the Front National emerge as "France's No 1 party".

Election pundits scorned her pretentions; the opinion polls confirmed them.

As the first exit polls were announced at 8pm on Sunday, cheers and a rendition of La Marseillaise broke out among the party faithful gathered at the Front National headquarters in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, appeared to prove Le Pen right.

The first estimations suggested the far-right party had done even better than expected, polling an historic 25% of votes in the European elections and becoming France's No1 party on the European stage.

It was the second slap in the face for Hollande's administration in as many months after a disastrous showing in local elections in March.

Elsewhere in Europe the elections are also expected to deliver strong showings for anti-EU parties and extremist parties.

Exit polls suggested Greece's anti-austerity leftist party Syriza had come first, but the election also delivered a strong showing for neo-Nazi group Golden Dawn. With up to 10% of the vote Golden Dawn looks set to elect at least two out of Greece's 21 eurodeputies, despite an ongoing criminal investigation and the fact that several of its leading members are in pre-trial detention.

Syriza was ahead by about 3 percentage points over the leading government party, the conservative New Democracy, polls jointly carried out by six leading opinion companies showed.

Syriza's parliamentary spokesman Panagiotis Lafazanis said that if confirmed, the EU vote constituted a game-changer in Greece.

"The (EU vote) result alters Greece's political scene," Lafazanis told Mega television.

Victory for Syriza would appear to reflect popular frustration with the harsh spending cuts the government has adopted in recent years to meet the terms of its economic rescue programme.

The surge in support for the far-left raises doubts about how much longer the centre-right government can last with a parliamentary majority of just two seats, although government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou said there was no question that the government would not finish its four-year term.

"It's easy for people to cast a protest vote in European elections," he told Greek television. "The political scenario of a government collapse, which Syriza was trying to paint, has not been borne out by the facts."

Projections by German television indicated that Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats would secure 36% of the vote, down from a 23-year-high of 41.5% in last year's federal election but still a clear victory.

The centre-left Social Democrats were forecast to take 27.5%, according to public broadcaster ARD, with turnout up from the last European elections in 2009.

The anti-euro Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won parliamentary representation for the first time with an estimated 6.5%, the best result so far for a conservative party created only last year.

"Germany has cast a clear pro-Europe vote and the high turnout is a good signal for the idea of European unity," said David McAllister, the top Christian Democrat candidate.