File n° 4

	The National Assembly and the Senate - General Characteristics of the Parliament
	Key Points The French Parliament is bicameral and is made up of the National Assembly, a Chamber elected by direct, universal suffrage, and the Senate, elected by indirect, universal suffrage and empowered by the Constitution with representing the territorial units of the Republic. The excesses of parliamentary sovereignty of the Third and Fourth Republics led the framers of the 1958 Constitution to limit the powers of the assemblies by laying down rules based on “rationalized parliamentarism”. The need to modernize parliamentary institutions has allowed the assemblies to gradually assert and clarify their role within the institutions of the Republic. This role is characterized in particular by the constant development of the monitoring activities concerning the executive See also files 12 to 53

The general characteristics of the legislative branch of power in France can be summed up in a double statement :

― The legislative branch is bicameral : it is shared in an unequal division between two parliamentary assemblies ;

― Its functioning is strictly limited by rules inspired by “rationalized parliamentarism”.

I. – bicameralism

1. – General characteristics of French bicameralism

The French Parliament is bicameral. Under the Fifth Republic it is made up of the National Assembly and the Senate. The two assemblies sit in two distinct premises (the National Assembly in the Palais Bourbon and the Senate in the Palais du Luxembourg).

Bicameralism was long considered in French constitutional history either as a means to curb the excesses of single assemblies (in 1795, as a reaction to the all-powerful nature of the Convention, or during the Second Empire, after the period of the Second Republic of 1848-1851) or as a way to consolidate the executive through the splitting-up of the legislative branch (this was brought to its extremes with the Constitutions of the Consulate and the Empire which set up a tricameral Parliament).

Modern bicameralism is very different, as the second Chamber is seen in many countries (e.g. Germany, Belgium and Spain) as the seat of territorial representation. This is also the case in France. The Constitution of the Fifth Republic thus set up a bicameral system in which two assemblies coexist : a National Assembly which is elected by direct universal suffrage and represents the citizens, and a Senate which is elected by indirect universal suffrage and represents the territorial units of the Republic.

As is the case with other Parliaments made up of two Chambers (with the notable exception of the Italian Parliament), French bicameralism is an unequal system as the National Assembly has much broader powers than the Senate :

―  It alone can call the Government to account by refusing to grant it its confidence or by passing a censure motion (following the same idea, only the National Assembly can be dissolved by the President of the Republic) ;

―  In the case of disagreement with the Senate, the Government can decide to grant the National Assembly “the final say” in the legislative procedure (except for constitutional laws and institutional laws concerning the Senate) ;

―  The National Assembly holds two sessions of questions to the Government every week whilst the Senate only holds two per month ;

―  The Constitution provides the National Assembly with a more important role in the examination of the finance bill and the social security finance bill. Thus the tabling for a first reading of such bills must be before the National Assembly and the time limits granted for their examination are much longer for the National Assembly. 

In almost all other areas the two Chambers are provided with the same powers.

Beyond the respective institutional powers of the two assemblies, the inequality between the two assemblies can be measured according to how well they are known. Citizens know the National Assembly and the M.P.s whom they have elected, much better. In addition, the media cover the proceedings of the National Assembly much more closely as its debates are placed much more at the heart of the main political issues and because the vast majority of the important political leaders are or have been members.

2. – The senate of the fifth republic

The role and the powers of the Senate are described in detail in the files concerning the exercise of the prerogatives of Parliament and the organization of its work.

The first characteristic of the Senate is its permanence : in contrast with the National Assembly, it cannot be dissolved. This permanence is the main justification for the Constitution of the Fifth Republic to grant the provisional exercise of the office of the President of the Republic to the President of the Senate if the former is prevented from doing so, if he resigns or if he dies. This interim is limited to the time needed to organize a presidential election (in practice, it lasts around 50 days).

The second specificity of the Senate lies in the role of the representation of the territorial units which is granted to it by article 24 of the Constitution. The method of electing Senators ensues from this role.

The Senate is made up of 343 Senators since 2008 (this will be raised to 348 in 2011) who are elected by indirect, universal suffrage. Half the Senate is renewed every 3 years.

The Senators are elected by a college of around 150,000 grand electors (who are obliged to participate in the vote). This college is made up of :

― M.P.s, regional councillors, councillors of the Assembly of Corsica, departmental councillors and councillors of the City of Paris ;

―  Delegates of the municipal councils whose number depends on the population of the municipality :

• 1 to 15 delegates for municipalities of less than 9,000 inhabitants ;

•  All the municipal councillors for municipalities of between 9,000 and 30,000 inhabitants ;

• The entire municipal council plus a supplementary delegate (elected by proportional ballot by the municipal council itself) for every 1,000 inhabitants in municipalities of over 30,000 inhabitants.

This system leads to a very strong representation for small rural municipalities within the college of grand electors since there are around 30 000 municipalities of this type in France.

The voting method varies according to the constituency :

― In the constituencies electing fewer than 4 senators, the method is a two-round majority system ;

― In those electing 4 or more Senators (i.e. the 15 most populous departments), the method is one of proportional representation with the application of the rule of the highest average for the distribution of the remaining votes.

All candidates for the office of Senator must be, at least, 30 years old.

This role of representation of territorial units explains why article 39 of the Constitution recognizes that bills concerning the organization of such units are first presented to the Senate.

Finally, although the National Assembly represents the citizens, the Senate alone represents the French living abroad. The latter elect 12 Senators by indirect suffrage. For this reason the Senate examines, before the National Assembly, all bills dealing with bodies representing French people living outside of France.

II. – rationalized parlementarism

1. – Application of the principles of rationalized parlementarism

One of the main aims of the framers of the 1958 Constitution was to limit the excesses of parliamentary sovereignty which was one of the principle causes of the governmental instability which had prevailed during the Third and Fourth Republics.

According to Michel Debré, “Governmental stability cannot first of all be the result of an electoral law but must be that of constitutional regulation”. The latter was to be composed of four series of measures :

― A very strict calendar of sessions ;

― An attempt at defining the ambit of statute ;

― A profound reorganization of the legislative procedure ;

― An adjustment of the legal mechanisms necessary for the balance and the correct operation of the political institutions”.

The formulation of these principles in the Constitution took a variety of forms :

― Control of the agenda of the assemblies by the Government ;

― Limitation of the right of parliamentarians to initiate legislation and to amend concerning the ambit of statute as defined by the Constitution and the rules of financial admissibility ;

― Prior examination by the Constitutional Council of the Rules of Procedure of the assemblies ;

― Limitation to six of the number of standing committees ;

― Privileged position granted to Government in the legislative discussion ;

―  Broad control by the Government of the legislative procedure (declaration of emergency, convening of joint committees, recourse to a block vote etc.) ;

― Strict limitations placed on the budgetary procedure ;

― Possibility of having a law passed without a vote unless the Government is defeated (article 49, paragraph 3 of the Constitution) ;

― Strict definition of the conditions of votes of no-confidence in the Government.

2. – The modernization of the role of Parliament

All of these measures had, as their primary objective, the limiting of the role of Parliament. In fact, a certain decrease in Parliament’s role can be noticed in the years which immediately followed the setting-up of the new system. The strong personality of General de Gaulle, the first President of the Fifth Republic, along with the fact that the excesses of the Parliament of the Fourth Republic were still to the forefront of people’s minds can explain this temporary decline in the role of the parliamentary institution.

However Parliament, by exploring processes of modernization, has gradually regained quite an amount of its influence. Several reforms bear witness to this development :

― The constant increase in the monitoring activities of Parliament (the proliferation of committees of inquiry, the setting-up of fact-finding missions within standing committees, the development of the procedures of questions to the Government, the setting-up of several parliamentary offices etc.) ;

― The introduction, since 1995, of the single ordinary session of nine months which has succeeded the system based on two three-month sessions ;

― The introduction, also since 1995, of a monthly sitting reserved for the agenda set by each assembly ;

― The intervention of Parliament since 1996 on the question of the financing of social security through the adoption of a new type of law ;

The implementation from 2005 on of a new procedure for the passing of finance bills which has greatly strengthened Parliament’s role in the budgetary area.