The National Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral Parliament of France under the Fifth Republic, the upper house being the Senate (Sénat). The National Assembly’s legislators are known as députés.
There are 577 députés, each elected by a single-member constituency through a two-round voting system. Thus, 289 seats are required for a majority. The assembly is presided over by a president, normally from the largest party represented, assisted by vice-presidents from across the represented political spectrum. The term of the National Assembly is five years; however, the President of the Republic may dissolve the Assembly unless it has been dissolved in the preceding twelve months. This measure is becoming rarer since the 2000 referendum reduced the presidential term from seven to five years: a President usually has a majority elected in the Assembly two months after the presidential election, and it would be useless for him/her to dissolve it for those reasons.
The French National Assembly
