Emmanuel Macron said he was confident that French voters will make “the right choice for themselves and for future generations” after he called a shock snap election after suffering a heavy defeat in Sunday’s EU election.

“My sole ambition is to be useful to our country that I love so much,” the French president said.

The announcement means that France will head into a summer election, with voters set to vote for a new National Assembly on June 30, with a second round on July 7.

Elsewhere in Europe, the conservative Christian Democrats appear to have comfortably won the vote in Germany, with the latest count putting them on 30 per cent of the vote.

But the hard-Right AfD emerged as the biggest winners in the EU’s largest member, with the party beating Olaf Scholz’ Social Democrats to take the second highest vote share.

Hard-right parties made strides across the continent, with wins in Italy and Austria.

In a largely humiliating night for the Greens, the environmentalist ticket did makes some gains in Scandinavia.