National Assembly

The National Assembly is one of the two assemblies which, together with the Senate, make up the French Parliament. It was created on 17 June 1789, taking on different forms and names, before returning to its original name in 1946. The National Assembly, which is composed of 577 deputies elected by French citizens, is located in the Palais Bourbon, in the 7th arrondissement, on the Left Bank, opposite the Place de la Concorde and in close proximity to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The main entrance is at 126 Rue de l'Université, also known as the Cour d'honneur. A library containing 700,000 books is available to MPs. The famous hemicycle, where the deputies meet to discuss and vote on laws, is located in the centre of the Palais Bourbon.

History of the National Assembly

Since the Fifth Republic, the National Assembly has continued to modernise along two lines.

The first is the creation of a real city within a city to provide accommodation and working space for all the MPs. The Hôtel Lassay, attached to the Palais, is the home of the President of the Assembly. Technological facilities have been put in place and a complete website is now available, as is the dedicated parliamentary channel, LCP, available on DTT. In an effort to open up to the public, the "Assembly kiosk" has been created. It makes all the Assembly's publications available to the public. In addition, and in accordance with republican tradition, all the sittings of the National Assembly are public. Access is possible for the first ten people who arrive at the beginning of the sitting and for people with an invitation from a deputy within the limits of available seats. The Assembly is also open to visitors during the Heritage Days and the Nuit Blanche.

The second axis of modernisation is the opening of the Assembly to contemporary art since the 1980s. Outside the building, Walter de Maria's work represents a granite sphere known as the " Sphere of Human Rights ", in which the seventeen articles of the Declaration of Human Rights are engraved. Inside the Assembly, several admirable works can be seen, including Olivier Debré's Ocre rayé des Tilleuls, Richard Texier's La Suite des Droits de l'Homme, and Alechinsky's Rotonde.