National Assembly

The Assemblee nationale is the lower house of the French parliament, sitting in the Palais Bourbon on the Seine's left bank opposite the Place de la Concorde. The current Fifth Republic framework, established in 1958 under Charles de Gaulle, defines the Assembly as a directly elected 577-seat chamber alongside the indirectly elected Senate. The Palais Bourbon itself was begun in 1722 for a daughter of Louis XIV; its monumental Corinthian river facade was added only under Napoleon from 1806 as a deliberate counterpart to the Eglise de la Madeleine. Inside the hemicycle, deputies debate beneath an allegorical frieze; guided visits are possible on non-session days with advance booking.