Blair's Labour party won 22.3 percent, compared with 27.4 percent for the Conservatives, according to British Broadcasting Corp. projections. Schroeder's Social Democrats scored 21.5 percent, the party's worst tally in a Germany-wide election since World War II, official results showed. The opposition Christian Democrats and Christian Social Union scored 44.5 percent.

Exit polls from France, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary pointed to setbacks for ruling parties there, turning the European Union's first elections since it expanded to 25 nations last month into a continent-wide repudiation of a 9.1 percent jobless rate and the role of some countries in Iraq.

Voters ``from London to Luebeck sought and found a vent for their frustration,'' said Peter Lockhofen, who helps manage the equivalent of $3.5 billion at DZ Capital Management GmbH in Frankfurt. ``As a trend with an unmistakable future, that should be worrisome for Europe's big parties.''

The EU-wide vote has no direct influence on the composition of national governments, though it acts as a barometer of public opinion.

Transport, Environment

While taxing, spending, social security, policing and defense are the province of national governments, the EU parliament holds sway over business, transport, labor and environmental regulations, can oust the European Commission and helps determine how the bloc spends its 100 billion euros ($120 billion) in regional, farming and development aid.

In all, 348 million Europeans were eligible to vote for 40,670 candidates from 183 parties running for 732 seats. National representation ranges from Germany with 99 seats, followed by France, Italy and Britain with 78 each, on down to Luxembourg, Estonia and Cyprus with 6 each and Malta with 5. The new parliament's term starts July 20.

Turnout fell to a record low of 44.2 percent, estimates by the parliament showed. Voter participation peaked at 63 percent in 1979, when the assembly was first democratically elected, and has fallen in every election since. Fewer than 30 percent of eligible voters in the 10 new EU countries went to the polls.

Flagging turnout gave a boost to protest parties such as the U.K. Independence Party, which wants to pull Britain out of the EU. The party won 16.8 percent, BBC projections showed. Sweden's June List, which wants to limit the EU's powers, won 14.4 percent.

`Backlash'

In France, Chirac's allies won 37.4 percent, lagging the Socialist-led opposition with 41.6 percent, according to partial returns. In Italy, Berlusconi's Forza Italia got 21 percent, behind the opposition's 31.1 percent, partial results showed.

Berlusconi also suffered losses in local elections. Exit polls indicated Forza Italia lost control of the regional government of the island of Sardinia. The opposition also recaptured the city government of Bologna.

``Voters are extremely tired of empty promises to revive the economy,'' said Hans-Juergen Hoffmann, managing director of Psephos GmbH, a Hamburg-based market research company.

Stifling Discontent

European unemployment is almost twice the U.S. level and economic growth is set to lag the U.S. for the 11th time in 12 years. With half of the 12 countries using the euro overshooting the EU's budget-deficit limits, governments are unable to boost spending and voters are balking at belt-tightening measures that would be needed to get deficits down.

``Politicians will now be preoccupied with stifling discontent with the election results within their parties and fighting back challengers to the current leaderships,'' said Laszlo Kishonti, who helps manage the equivalent of $663 million in mostly Hungarian stocks and bonds at Budapest-based K&H Investment Fund, a unit of Belgium's KBC Bancassurance Holding NV. ``Governments will be more inclined take populist measures rather than the difficult steps to carry on with economic reforms.''

Two governments that took power this year bucked the trend. In Spain, where the Socialists won national elections in March, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's Socialists, who pulled the country's troops out of Iraq after taking office, won 43.4 percent of the vote. In Greece, allies of Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, who took power in March, likely won 43.7 percent, beating the opposition Socialists.

Polish Opposition

Poland's ruling Democratic Left Alliance and Labor Union came in fifth, with 9 percent of the vote, according to official incomplete results Monday. Poland's largest opposition party, the Citizens' Platform, won 22.9 percent, ahead of the anti-EU Polish Families League with 16.8 percent.

Voting for the EU parliament for the first time ``should make us feel happy and proud,'' Mariusz Cielecki, a 54-year-old math teacher, said at a Warsaw polling station. ``Unfortunately, there is a strong feeling of disappointment with local and European politics as well.''

With ruling parties on both sides of the political spectrum faring poorly, the balance of power in the parliament didn't change. Europe's Conservatives, a loose grouping that includes allies of France's Chirac and Italy's Berlusconi, probably won 269 seats, or 36.7 percent of the total 732, compared with 37.4 percent in the outgoing parliament, according to projections by the assembly.

`Sending Message'

The Socialists, including allies of the U.K.'s Blair and Germany's Schroeder, remained the second-strongest force, with 199 seats or 27.2 percent, compared with 29.4 percent before. There were 788 seats in the outgoing parliament.

``People are once again using the European election to send a message to their own government,'' Martin Schulz, the German Social Democrats' top candidate for the EU parliament, told German television.

The Conservatives, led by Germany's Hans-Gert Poettering, had hoped for a victory to cement their claim to the post of president of the European Commission, a job that will be awarded by EU government leaders next week.

Unaffiliated candidates who largely oppose handing more powers to the EU won 77, up from 44 in the old parliament. The result is ``quite a large bloc of refuseniks, anti-Europeans,'' said Graham Watson, the Liberals' leader. ``The pressure will be on the major mainstream parties to work together to deal with these.''

Constitution Risk

The euro-skeptic upsurge also raises the risk that the EU's new constitution won't be ratified. Britain, Denmark, Ireland and Belgium plan to hold referendums, and several others are contemplating one. Voters in any one country could veto the constitution, which EU leaders aim to endorse next week.

Topping the list of voter concerns were the jobless rate and the threat of terrorist attacks, two issues over which the parliament has little influence. Some 51 percent named unemployment as their main preoccupation, with 32 percent citing terrorism and 29 percent economic growth, according to a poll by TNS Sofres/EOS Gallup Europe of 12,267 eligible voters between May 17 and June 1.

In the last five-year term, the parliament shaped everyday Europeans' lives by ordering that cigarette packs be smothered with warnings such as ``smoking can cause a slow and painful death,'' mandating compensation as high as 600 euros for bumped airline passengers, enacting labeling requirements for gene- altered foods and forcing banks to reduce fees for cross-border euro transfers and withdrawals from money machines.

In dictating an estimated 60 percent of the legislation that finds its way to national statute books, the EU parliamentarians often put country over party. German Social and Christian Democrats united in 2001 to veto a takeover code that they feared would make companies such as Volkswagen AG, Europe's biggest carmaker, prey to hostile foreign bidders, and Britain's delegation last year watered down proposed curbs on investment banks' stock trading.