PARIS (Reuters) - France's far-right National Front was projected to win European Parliament elections in France on Sunday with 25 percent of the vote, with exit polls putting Francois Hollande's Socialists in a lowly third place behind the center-right UMP.

If the National Front score is confirmed, it will be the first time that the anti-immigrant, anti-EU party has won a nationwide election in its four-decade history.

Pollsters CSA, TNS-Sofres and Ifop all had the ruling Socialists scoring between 14 and 14.5 percent, well down from the 16.5 percent they won last time in 2009. The UMP opposition was put on between 20.6 and 21 percent of the vote.

"The results represent a collapse for the Socialist party and the UMP," said FN founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, who handed over the reins of the party to his daughter Marine in 2011.

"We think the government should dissolve the Parliament," he told French television.

Senior Socialist and energy minister Segolene Royal said it showed the urgent need for Hollande's government to kickstart a recovery in the euro zone's second largest economy.

"The vote shows the impatience of the people for results," she acknowledged.

Rama Yade, a Senegal-born conservative politician who was a junior minister in ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007-2012 government, said an FN victory would be a "tragedy for democracy".

Survey group Ifop said the abstention rate was 59 percent, lower than many pollsters had expected.

(Reporting by Mark John and Leila Abboud; Writing by Mark John; Editing by Leila Abboud)