Title IV. PARLIAMENT
ARTICLE 24
Parliament shall pass statutes. It shall monitor the action of the Government. It shall assess public policies.
It shall comprise the National Assembly and the Senate.
Members of the National Assembly, whose number shall not exceed five hundred and seventy-seven, shall be elected by direct suffrage.
The Senate, whose members shall not exceed three hundred and forty-eight, shall be elected by indirect suffrage. The Senate shall ensure the representation of the territorial communities of the Republic.
French nationals living abroad shall be represented in the National Assembly and in the Senate.
ARTICLE 25
An Institutional Act shall determine the term for which each House is elected, the number of its members, their allowances, the conditions of eligibility and the terms of disqualification and of incompatibility with membership.
It shall likewise determine the manner of election of those persons called upon to replace Members of the National Assembly or Senators whose seats have become vacant, until the general or partial renewal by election of the House in which they sat, or have been temporarily replaced on account of having accepted a position in Government.
An independent commission, whose composition and rules of organization and operation shall be set down by statute, shall publicly express an opinion on the Government and Private Members’ Bills defining the constituencies for the election of Members of the National Assembly, or modifying the distribution of the seats of Members of the National Assembly or of Senators.
ARTICLE 26
No Member of Parliament shall be prosecuted, investigated, arrested, detained or tried in respect of opinions expressed or votes cast in the performance of his official duties.
No Member of Parliament shall be arrested for a serious crime or other major offence, nor shall he be subjected to any other custodial or semi-custodial measure, without the authorization of the Bureau of the House of which he is a member. Such authorization shall not be required in the case of a serious crime or other major offence committed flagrante delicto or when a conviction has become final.
The detention, subjecting to custodial or semi-custodial measures, or prosecution of a Member of Parliament shall be suspended for the duration of the session if the House of which he is a member so requires.
The House concerned shall meet as of right for additional sittings in order to permit the application of the foregoing paragraph should circumstances so require.
ARTICLE 27
No Member shall be elected with any binding mandate.
Members’ right to vote shall be exercised in person.
An Institutional Act may, in exceptional cases, authorize voting by proxy. In that event, no Member shall be given more than one proxy.
ARTICLE 28
Parliament shall sit as of right in one ordinary session which shall start on the first working day of October and shall end on the last working day of June.
The number of days for which each House may sit during the ordinary session shall not exceed one hundred and twenty. The number of sitting weeks shall be determined by each House.
The Prime Minister, after consulting the President of the House concerned or the majority of the members of each House may decide that said House shall meet for additional sitting days.
The days and hours of sittings shall be determined by the Rules of Procedure of each House.
ARTICLE 29
Parliament shall meet in extraordinary session, at the request of the Prime Minister or of the majority of the Members of the National Assembly, to debate a specific agenda.
Where an extraordinary session is held at the request of Members of the National Assembly, this session shall be closed by decree once all the items on the agenda for which Parliament was convened have been dealt with, or not later than twelve days after its first sitting, whichever shall be the earlier.
The Prime Minister alone may request a new session before the end of the month following the decree closing an extraordinary session.
ARTICLE 30
Except where Parliament sits as of right, extraordinary sessions shall be opened and closed by a Decree of the President of the Republic.
ARTICLE 31
Members of the Government shall have access to both Houses. They shall address either House whenever they so request.
They may be assisted by commissaires du Government.
ARTICLE 32
The President of the National Assembly shall be elected for the life of a Parliament. The President of the Senate shall be elected each time elections are held for partial renewal of the Senate.
ARTICLE 33
The sittings of the two Houses shall be public. A verbatim report of the debates shall be published in the Journal Officiel.
Each House may sit in camera at the request of the Prime Minister or of one tenth of its members.
