Have Eurosceptic parties really taken over the EU?

Marine Le Pen and other Eurosceptic leaders have said they want to bring down the EU from the inside. So is the bloc’s implosion just a matter of time?

Hardly. Despite the blustering rhetoric from Ms Le Pen and Nigel Farage, pro-European forces still dominate the parliament with at least 75 per cent of the 751 seats.

Who exactly are these fringe parties that have made the gains?

They cover a wide political spectrum from far left to far right. Ukip and the far-right Danish People’s Party sit with one of the anti-EU groups.

Parties that have MEPs for the first time include those with neo-Nazi traits, such as Greece’s Golden Dawn and the German radical National Democratic Party (shown as 'others' above).

On the far left, Italy’s anti-establishment Five Star Movement will have its first seats while Spain also saw a proliferation of smaller parties.

Finally you have the more established populist parties, such as the Front National and Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party in the Netherlands. They sat as independents in the last parliament and a big question is what their plans are now.

Are all these far-right parties going to join together into a supergroup?

That’s the plan of Ms Le Pen and Mr Wilders, who want to form a new official political group in the parliament, which means more funds and more influence.

They need at least 25 MEPs from seven member states but the hard right is beset with divisions – something which is likely to dent their power.