Hugh Schofield BBC News, Paris, reports: After the euphoria of election night, it was back down to earth on Monday morning as Mr Hollande moved quickly on to the business of preparing to govern. Over the next few days, he will be drawing up the list of names for his first government, which will take over after the handover of presidential power next week.

Favourite for the post of prime minister is Jean-Marc Ayrault, a veteran socialist parliamentarian and mayor of the city of Nantes, who is also a German speaker and could help build up relations with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. The new government's primary task will be to prepare for more elections, this time for the parliament or national assembly, which will take place at the start of June.

These are crucial because Mr Hollande needs a parliamentary majority in order to see through his programme. At the moment, the assembly is dominated by supporters of Mr Sarkozy. Parliamentary elections like these that immediately follow presidential elections tend to deliver the head of state the majority he requires, but it is not a foregone conclusion; the next few weeks in France will see yet more passionate political campaigning.

Bankia, Spain's fourth biggest bank, is the first in line for state aid. Rodrigo Rato, chairman and former IMF managing director, swiftly resigned after it was disclosed the finance ministry was preparing to refinance the bank and introduce legislation to protect the balance sheets of others. Spain, which also signalled it could dock its only aircraft carrier to save €30 million a year, is already struggling to cope with an austerity drive that has pushed the jobless total up to nearly 25 per cent of the workforce.

Mr Rajoy insisted that any bank bail-out would not compromise the tough targets set by Brussels to reduce the budget deficit. Peter Kenny, managing director at Knight Capital, said Spain's action was positive because "it's them taking ownership of their own issues". Fears of a fall-out in financial markets after the election results in France and Greece were short-lived. Shares and the euro recovered after initial falls as investors reasoned any policy changes in the eurozone recovery programme were some way off.

But the turmoil in Greece produced by a backlash against a tough austerity programme and the failure of early efforts to form a coalition government heightened speculation the country would be forced out of the eurozone. Citi's European economics team said there was a "rising risk of a Greek exit from the euro within the next 12 to 18 months." Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, urged the Greek political parties to stick to the bail-out programme but her pleas fell on deaf ears.

Street protests have been seen across Italy, Spain and Portugal as people reacted to spending cuts that have slowed economies across Europe. Savings have been wiped out and in Spain, a real estate crash has helped swell unemployment to 25 per cent of the workforce. Many economists have advocated a greater emphasis on growth, but it has only gained traction among European policy-makers and politicians in the past few weeks.

Paul Krugman, an economics Nobel Prize winner, welcomed the anti-austerity groundswell in Europe, saying the bloc’s voters proved “wiser than the Continent’s best and brightest”. He said the health of the German economy was “an argument for much more expansionary policies elsewhere, and in particular for the European Central Bank to drop its obsession with inflation and focus on growth”.

Anti-austerity momentum came to a head on Sunday night, when voters in France and Greece spectacularly ousted governments seen as towing the fiscal discipline line too strictly. In France, new Socialist president-elect Francois Hollande said his victory marked “a new departure for Europe and hope for the world” because it showed “austerity can no longer be the only option”.

After thanking his ministers for the past three years, Netanyahu said that although the government was one of the most stable in Israel’s history, recent instability could lead to extortion — apparently a reference to pressure from minor coalition parties. Such a situation would harm Israel’s basic pillars of security, economy and society, the prime minister said. He added that after the elections he intended to form “a wide and stable coalition,” capable of dealing with the burning core issues and the country’s needs.

Netanyahu was expected to name the election date Sunday night at his Likud party’s convention in Tel Aviv, but in the end put it off for a day. The Knesset is expected to vote to dissolve itself Monday, paving the way for new elections.

Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) scored 30.6 percent, according to ARD public television, with her junior partners at the national level, the Free Democrats (FDP), winning 8.3 percent - not enough to retain power in the northern state. However, the opposition - combining the centre-left Social Democrats and ecologist Greens - also failed to gain sufficient support to form a government, with 29.9 percent and 13.6 percent respectively.

This left as a strong possibility a so-called "grand coalition" between the CDU and SPD, which many believe could be the final result of the national elections due in September or October 2013. The big winners on the night were the Pirates, an upstart party that has shaken up the staid world of German politics with a campaign based on more transparency in the political process and internet freedom.

For the third consecutive regional election, they breached the five-percent mark needed to enter the state parliament, winning 8.2 percent of the vote. But for the FDP, although they lost more than six percent compared to the last election in 2009, it was a better-than-expected result, given that they are polling nationally at around three percent. The vote in Schleswig-Holstein is seen as a dress rehearsal for a much more significant election in the bellwether state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) on May 13.

As Germany's most populous state with 18 million people and a major industrial base, NRW's centre-left minority government fell after just 22 months over a budget dispute. The state historically plays a big role in federal politics - in 2005, a lost vote in NRW prompted then Chancellor Gerhard Schröder to call a snap federal election which he then lost to Merkel.

The latest official results, with over 61 percent of the vote counted, showed the only two major parties supporting an EU/IMF program that keeps Greece from bankruptcy would be hard pressed to form a lasting coalition. Conservative New Democracy and Socialist PASOK, who have dominated Greece for decades, were holding less than 35 percent of the vote. That would mean they might only scrape the 151-seat threshold needed for even the most fragile majority in parliament.

Once mighty PASOK looked set to be pushed into third place by the anti-bailout Left Coalition party, in a stunning vote against austerity policies that have caused deep hardship in one of Europe's worst postwar recessions. New Democracy was polling just under 20 percent and PASOK a humiliating 13.6 percent with the Left Coalition on 16.2.

In the last election in 2009, PASOK won a landslide victory with 44 percent and the Left Coalition had just 5 percent. "I cannot take it anymore, living as beggars in our own country. The Left Coalition can shake them up, and wake them up," said Kate Savvidou, 65, a pensioner who deserted PASOK. Left Coalition leader Alexis Tsipras, at 37 Greece's youngest political leader, hailed a peaceful revolution and said German Chancellor Angela Merkel should understand that austerity policies had been defeated. "Greek people gave a mandate for a new dawn with solidarity and justice instead of barbaric bailout measures," he said.

The Greek electoral shock coincided with the victory of Socialist Francois Hollande in France's presidential election and was likely to add to pressure for resistance to German-led austerity policies. Italian technocrat Prime Minister Mario Monti, who faces increasing resistance to austerity at home, phoned Hollande and other European leaders after the election results to push for pro-growth policies.

"We are coming," the 55-year-old said as supporters threw firecrackers outside. According to updated exit polls, the once-marginal party will end up winning over six percent of the vote and sending 19 deputies to the 300-seat parliament on a wave of immigration and crime fears, as well as anti-austerity anger. Exulting in the apparent breakthrough, Michaloliakos quoted Julius Caesar: "Veni, Vidi, Vici" - I came, I saw, I conquered. Michaloliakos said his party would fight against "world usurers" and the "slavery" of an EU-IMF loan agreement which he likened to a "dictatorship".

"GREECE IS ONLY THE BEGINNING," he shouted at reporters as he walked to the news conference, accusing foreign media of spreading lies about his movement. At the last general election in 2009, the virulently anti-immigrant group had scored just 0.29 percent. A mathematician, Michaloliakos has said Greece could survive "very nicely" without the EU-IMF recovery deal. "Certainly we should break the agreement," he told the Athens News English-language weekly last month. "After that, we will survive very nicely."

"Greece is a rich country," he said, adding that the country would not necessarily have to return to the drachma. On his agenda, Michaloliakos said his focus would be on "national issues, social issues, the problem of illegal immigration, attribution of responsibility for all scandals." All illegal migrants "should leave our country," he said.

The handover of power by Nicolas Sarkozy should take place by May 15 at the latest, but the Socialist will immediately begin consultations with EU partners on his emblematic campaign initiative, according to his advisors. The goal is to advance the proposal on a growth compact to the stage of a memorandum that would be transmitted to European capitals for consideration by the end of the month.

The fiscal compact treaty requiring cutting deficits and debt was signed at the beginning of March by 25 EU states and has already been ratified by several. Once sworn into office Hollande will meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, where they are expected to lay the groundwork for an informal summit of EU leaders on growth to be held at the end of the month or June, and a formal summit on June 28 and 29.

For Merkel, the main advocate of austerity in public finances, it is out of the question to reopen debate on the fiscal compact. Will the new French president clash with the German leader?

Fringe parties, some of them routinely labelled "neo-Fascist" until recently, have made stunning inroads into mainstream European politics, to the point that in France, Norway, Finland, Hungary and Austria they either hold or threaten to hold the balance of power. Governments are increasingly faced with the choice of either giving ground on hot-button issues such as immigration and Islam, or ceding power. In Greece, its disastrous economy in the hands of European moneymen, its political establishment rotten with corruption and unemployment among the under-25s cresting 50 per cent, this general election has seen a host of extremist parties emerge from the woodwork like termites.

The leader of Chrysi Avgi ("Golden Dawn"), Nikos Michaloliakos, would not have been given the time of day in most EU countries only a short while ago. An open admirer of Hitler (he has called him "a great personality of history"), Mr Michaloliakos has adopted the Nazi salute and a version of the swastika as his party's emblem. One of his candidates in this election remarked laconically: "Most of the money is in the hands of the Jews." At the last election Golden Dawn polled a derisory 0.29 per cent; this time they are expected to crash through the 3 per cent threshold to end up with a dozen MPs in parliament.

That will still put them many miles away from holding power. But in Greece, as in many other countries, the danger is not a far-right takeover but ideological contamination of the parties in power. Last week, attempting to steal the far right's thunder, the technocratic government of Lucas Papademos set up a camp for illegal immigrants and promises to establish dozens more.

In the Netherlands the power of the far right was demonstrated last week when Geert Wilders' Freedom Party, anti-Muslim and anti-EU, brought down the government, wrecking a long-standing financial pact with Germany which had been one of the pillars of EU stability.

In France the rise of the Front National under Marine Le Pen has already dramatically altered the terms of the presidential election decided yesterday. When the FN polled 17.9 per cent in the first round two weeks ago, President Sarkozy immediately toughened his rhetoric. "Islamism is the totalitarianism of religion," Ms Le Pen declared last week. Mr Sarkozy promptly followed suit, as John Lichfield reported in the Independent on Sunday yesterday, lashing out at "such menacing enemies as halal meat in school canteens and special hours for women in swimming pools".

Across Europe, from Britain, where UKIP – "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists" according to David Cameron – averaged 14 per cent in last Thursday's local elections, to Finland, where the extreme nationalist True Finns party has increased its share of the vote from 4 per cent to 19 per cent in four years, to Hungary, where the anti-Roma, anti-Semitic Jobbik party holds the balance of power, THE FAR-RIGHT IS SEIZING THE INITIATIVE PROVIDED BY RECESSION AND THE THREAT OF A EUROZONE MELTDOWN.

The 57-year-old Socialist has openly admitted that he "does not like the rich" and declared that "my real enemy is the world of finance". This means taxing the wealthy by up to 75 per cent, curtailing the activities of Paris as a centre for financial dealing, and ploughing millions into creating more civil service jobs. Add an explicit threat to renegotiate the euro pact to replace austerity with "growth-creating" spending, and you have one of the most vehemently left-wing programmes in recent history.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel – the woman at the centre of the Franco-German economic powerhouse which has dominated Europe – was at one stage even threatening to campaign for her conservative ally, Nicolas Sarkozy, against Mr Hollande. Caution is justified, though one thing Mr Hollande will not repeat is the disastrous tax-and-spend policies introduced by France's last Socialist President, François Mitterrand, in 1981. He was soon forced into a humiliating U-turn, and into sharing power with the right as the Communists quit his cabinet in protest.

In contrast, Mr Hollande will focus on solving the euro crisis and reversing a Gallic economic decline widely blamed on a failed capitalist system, and particularly a rotten banking sector. Just as pertinently, he will seek to heal divides caused by five years of the most unpopular head of state in post-war history.

Greece's vote, combined with the victory of Socialist Francois Hollande over incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in a French presidential election, will raise pressure on Europe's paymaster Germany to pursue a more growth-oriented approach to the crisis. But it is far from clear whether Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose insistence on tough deficit reduction in vulnerable southern euro members is popular in Germany, will take more than symbolic steps in that direction, even after Sunday's elections.

"This shows that politics is getting out of control in Europe, the gap between politicians and voters is widening, that's what you see in Greece, that's what you see in France," said Steen Jakobsen, chief economist at Saxo Bank in Copenhagen. "Clearly, voters across Europe have started to send the message: ‘we are not ready to do the reforms’, and that's worrying." More immediately, the struggle of Greece's two big pro-bailout parties - conservative New Democracy and socialist PASOK - to secure a parliamentary majority raises questions about whether Athens can stay in the euro zone in the long run, and may spark a new wave of contagion to other member states.

The Greek result puts Hollande, a novice on the international stage who has never held a ministerial post nor met Merkel, in the hot seat from day one. Investors worried about Greece's future and the arrival of the first Socialist in the Elysee Palace in 17 years, could punish European financial markets starting on Monday, pushing the entire bloc back towards crisis-mode.

European stock markets fell, with Germany's Dax trading 1.2% lower. By late-morning, the Cac 40 in Paris was trading down 0.9%. Athens shares were trading down by 8.3%. London markets are closed for a public holiday. European markets had also fallen sharply on Friday following the release of US unemployment figures. The interest rates on some government debt has also gone up, indicating a fall in investor confidence. The yields in the secondary markets for Greek 10-year bonds has gone up from 20% to 22.2%. The yield on French 10-year bonds has also risen from 2.81% to 2.84%. Asian markets also fell, with the Nikkei in Tokyo dropping 2.8%.

In Greece, the socialist Pasok party saw an unexpectedly poor result, while Syriza, which has opposed austerity measures, had a strong performance. The result has cast doubt on whether the country's policies that currently include spending cuts, tax increases and state job losses, can continue. "The Greek side of things is a ticking time bomb," Justin Harper of IG Markets told the BBC. "The fear now is that all the hard work that had gone into getting the second bailout package may start to unravel and we can expect some real pressure on stock markets in the coming days."

BBC Europe editor Gavin Hewitt says Greece faces political turmoil. "Pro-austerity parties were punished at the polls. The country will struggle to form a coalition that has the support in parliament for new spending cuts that are a pre-condition for receiving funds from a bailout," he said. "There will be fresh doubts as to whether Greece can remain in the euro. The new political reality in Europe is that voters appear no longer willing to accept spending cuts, low growth and unemployment."

The result is seen as a rejection of the tough terms of two EU/IMF bailouts. A radical left coalition, Syriza, came second after New Democracy, and a neo-Nazi party polled almost 7%. With about 99% of votes counted, centre-right New Democracy (ND) is leading with 18.9%, down from 33.5% in 2009. Party leader Antonis Samaras is set to meet President Karolos Papoulias, who will ask him to form a government. Mr Samaras will try to form a unity government to keep the country in the euro although he has promised to try to "amend" the bailout terms in order to boost growth.

ND and the socialist Pasok have between them run Greece since the 1970s. Since November, they have been in a coalition led by technocrat Prime Minister Lucas Papademos. Pasok could manage only third place with 13.2%, down from 43.9% in the last elections and behind Syriza, which polled 16.8% and opposes the government's austerity measures. The neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, with almost 7% of the vote, is on course for at least 20 seats in parliament.

Party leader Antonis Samaras is set to meet President Karolos Papoulias, who will ask him to form a government. Mr Samaras will try to form a unity government to keep the country in the euro although he has promised to try to "amend" the bailout terms in order to boost growth. ND and the socialist Pasok have between them run Greece since the 1970s. Since November, they have been in a coalition led by technocrat Prime Minister Lucas Papademos.

The Socialist leader won just under 52% of votes in Sunday's run-off election. Centre-right incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy is the first French president since 1981 not to win a second term. Mr Sarkozy will hand power to Mr Hollande on 15 May, following talks between the two camps, the presidency has said. Mr Hollande has called for a renegotiation of a hard-won European treaty on budget discipline championed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Mr Sarkozy.

Mrs Merkel congratulated the president-elect by phone and invited him to Berlin to hold talks soon. Mr Hollande's campaign director, Pierre Moscovici, told AFP news agency that the two had agreed to work together on "a strong Franco-German relationship in the interest of Europe". Mr Hollande feeds a renewed sense of hope in the country - particularly among the young - that amid the austerity, there can be jobs and salaries, our correspondent adds. Mr Hollande offers a fresh start - but the debt problems for France are still the same.

In over 30 years in politics Mr Hollande has never served as a minister. For much of his tenure as the party's first secretary from 1997 to 2008 he was seen as a consensus manager - a listener more than a visionary. Now he must lead, making tough choices to put France on the path to recovery.

But political leaders were on Sunday night conceding the consensus had been shattered beyond repair. With Europe's economies plunging further into recession and as unemployment in the eurozone breaks record levels, voters demands for a new approach had finally become too great to ignore. The popular backlash to EU imposed austerity to the centrist New Democracy and Socialist parties in Greece threatens the existence of the euro itself.

Greece is potentially ungovernable as a minority government must try and pass a new raft of austerity measures next month which are a condition of an EU-IMF bailout and Greek membership of the euro. In France, while Hollande, the Socialist President-elect is a centrist, he is sitting on a powder keg of resentment at measures that his government will have to pass if it is not to spark a meltdown of financial markets. He has refused to ratify the treaty unless the eurozone and EU also sign up to a "growth pact".

Mr Hollande also horrified Berlin by sneering at the idea that France should change its constitution to enshrine a "debt brake" outlawing Socialist spending levels. In a meeting in Berlin next week, Chancellor Merkel is set to warn the French President, that weakening austerity pledges would rattle markets and undermine investor confidence at a critical time for the eurozone's economy.