Mr Mariani, a former minister who left the centre-right Les Républicains party in January to join forces with Mrs Le Pen, said: “The RN is truly becoming a popular, mainstream party that represents voters across France.” Mr Mariani also told broadcaster France Info on Monday: “We’ve never won so many votes [in a European election]. “When you analyse our results, you can see that we are now present in all regions, and popular among all socio-professional categories and all age groups.”
Ms Le Pen’s RN, formerly known as the Front National, rode a wave of populist sentiment to win the French vote, but the margin of victory over President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist party was narrow.
The RN won 23.3 percent of the vote, a little under one percentage point ahead of Mr Macron’s La République en Marche (REM) list on 22.4 per cent, according to the Interior Ministry.
Both parties will have 23 seats in the EU chamber.
The result is somewhat of a defeat for Mr Macron, who put Europe at the heart of his presidency and at the forefront of the REM’s EU campaign.
But Ms Le Pen and her top candidate, Jordan Bardella, managed to turn the election into a referendum on Mr Macron’s first two years in office, calling on voters to show their opposition to his tough economic reforms and pro-EU policies
“The French people have sent a very clear message and a lesson in humility” to Mr Macron, Mr Bardella, 23, told RN supporters.
He added: “It’s him and his politics that have been rejected.
“The gains for our allies in Europe and the emergence of new forces across the continent… open the way for the formation of a powerful group in the European parliament.”
Ms Le Pen is for her part revelling in her victory, which will allow her to build a strong far-right alliance in Europe alongside Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini and other nationalist parties who think that EU member states have become subservient to Brussels.
RN lawmakers will travel to Brussels as early as Tuesday to begin negotiations with their far-right allies, according to Mr Mariani, who also said that two new parliamentary blocs would most likely be formed following the talks.
Mr Mariani said: “The most important thing for us is that we all agree on the ‘big’ issues.
“Almost all of us agree on the migration question, for example.
“It’s true that divergences still exist when it comes to foreign policy and posted workers, but on the whole, we all want a Europe of nations.”
While Europe’s far-right, sovereigntist parties share the overarching goals of returning power to member states and clamping down on immigration, they often have very different economic and social policies, which might make it difficult for them to create a coherent group within the EU parliament.