European elections: how they work and what's at stake

The elections to the European Parliament involve a total electorate of around 427 million from across the European Union (EU). The voting is held separately in each member state, over the course of one day, beginning in some countries on May 23rd and ending on May 26th, which is when France goes to the polls. They will decide the makeup of what will be the ninth five-year term of the bloc’s directly elected parliament, which was first elected in 1979.