Far-right parties made big strides in elections for the European Parliament, results that rattled the continent's traditional powers and made French President Emanuel Macron call snap legislative elections.

Millions voted for candidates to serve five-year terms in a new European Parliament, the legislative branch of the 27-member trade bloc made up of 720 seats.

Macron’s party suffered a heavy defeat from the far-right National Rally party, while in Germany support for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats sank to a projected 14 percent, behind the extreme-right Alternative for Germany, which surged into second place.

Meanwhile, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni saw her position strengthened by her arch-conservative Brothers of Italy group winning the most votes, exit polls showed.

Despite the gains on the right, exit polls showed a coalition of centre-left and centre-right would remain the majority in parliament, albeit smaller than before.

The exit poll projected that pro-European centre-right, centre-left, liberal and Green parties would retain a majority of 456 seats, but one which is significantly slimmed down compared to their 488 in the outgoing chamber.

A rightwards shift inside the European Parliament may make it tougher to pass new legislation that might be needed to respond to security challenges, the impact of climate change or industrial competition from China and the United States. (Agencies)