A German political party that has been compared to the Nazis will enter the European Parliament for the first time, in an election marked by a surge in right-wing parties that are either sceptical or hostile to the EU.
The NPD has been campaigning on a platform of stopping immigration and been called racist and anti-semitic.
They have fought under the banner of slogans like "Money for granny instead of Sinti and Roma" and "the boat is full", given interviews insisting Europe is "a continent of white people" and, as pictured below, have marched with banners proclaiming the Nazi ideology of "National Socialism".
Police at an NPD march in Rostock, Germany, earlier this month
The victory for the NPD has been put down to a recent reform to German electoral law - ending a ban on parties that fail to get 3% of the popular vote taking seats in the European Parliament. The party won around 1% of the vote.
"We say Europe is the continent of white people and it should remain that way," Udo Voigt, the party's lead candidate, told Reuters.
"We want to make sure that even in 50 years' time an Italian, a Frenchman, an Englishman, an Irishman and a German are still recognizable as European and cannot be mistaken for Ghanaians or Chinese."
In France, Marine Le Pen's anti-immigration Front National defeated the Socialist Party with an extraordinary quarter of the vote.
Outgoing Tory MEP Martin Callanan described the party as "openly racist" and described the result as "black day for Europe".
An aide to French President Francois Hollande said the results were "the start of the crisis".
"Tonight is the start of the crisis. The shock in Europe and the world will be very violent if the far-Right comes first in France," a senior aide to the president told The Daily Telegraph.
The Front National has never come first in a national election and, if its share of the vote is confirmed, it will have around 25 MEPs, out of the 74 representing France in Brussels.
On hearing the projections, Le Pen called for the country's national parliament to be dissolved.
"What else can the president do after such a rejection?. It is unacceptable that the assembly should be so unrepresentative of the French people," she told reporters at her party headquarters.
Front National leader Marine Le Pen called for the national assembly be dissolved on hearing the projected results
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls described it as a "political earthquake".
Elsewhere, the far-right Danish People's party won nearly 27% of the vote and doubled its number of MEPs, ahead of the ruling Social Democrats on 20%. Finland's anti-immigration Finns party increased its number of MEPs to two, but its share of the vote has dropped.
In Austria, the far-right Freedom Party won more than a fifth of all votes cast, placing it third overall.
In Greece, the extremist Golden Dawn party gained 9% of the vote and are expected to enter the EU Parliament for the first time. But the radical left-wing Syriza party, the most popular opposition party, came top in the country with 26% of the vote.
Turnout was broadly low, as expected, but varied dramatically between countries - 90% in Belgium and just 13% in Slovakia.
Nigel Farage's Ukip has delivered the "political earthquake" he has promised in British politics as his party looked set to top the European polls.
David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg have all faced criticism over the way they have responded to Ukip's rise and strategists will study the results of the final national ballot ahead of next year's general election as they plan how to tackle a new era of four-party politics.