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This article lists Presidents of the French Parliament or, as the case may be, of its lower chamber.
Contents
- Presidents of the National Constituent Assembly (1789–1791)
- Presidents of the Legislative Assembly (1791–1792)
- Presidents of the National Convention (1792–1795)
- Presidents of the Council of Five Hundred (1795–1799)
- Presidents of the Legislative Corps (1800–1814)
- President of the Chamber of Départements' Deputies (1814–1815)
- President of the Chamber of Representatives (4 June-13 July 1815)
- Presidents of the Chamber of Deputies of the Departments (1815–1830)
- Presidents of the Chamber of Deputies (1830–1848)
- Presidents of the National Constituent Assembly (1848–1849)
- President of the National Legislative Assembly (1849–1852)
- Presidents of the Legislative Corps (1852–1870)
- Presidents of the Chamber of Deputies (1871–1940)
- President of the Consultative Assembly (1943–1945)
- Presidents of the Constituent National Assembly (1945–1946)
- Presidents of the National Assembly, Fourth Republic (1946–1958)
- Presidents of the National Assembly, Fifth Republic (1958–present)
The National Constituent Assembly was created in 1789 out of the Estates-General. It, and the revolutionary legislative assemblies that followed – the Legislative Assembly (1791–1792) and the National Convention (1792–1795), had a quickly rotating Presidency. With the establishment of the Directory in 1795, there were two chambers of the French legislature. The lower, the Council of Five Hundred, also had a quickly rotating chairmanship. Under Napoleon I, the Legislative Corps had all authority to actually enact laws, but was essentially a rubberstamp body, lacking the power to debate legislation. With the restoration of the monarchy, a bicameral system was restored, with a Chamber of Peers and a Chamber of Deputies. The Chamber of Deputies, for the first time, had presidents elected for a substantial period of time.
The National Convention was the first government of the French Revolution, following the two-year National Constituent Assembly and the one-year Legislative Assembly. Created after the great insurrection of 10 August 1792, it was the first French government organized as a republic, abandoning the monarchy altogether. The Convention sat as a single-chamber assembly from 20 September 1792 to 26 October 1795.
The Directory or Directorate was a five-member committee that governed France from 2 November 1795, when it replaced the Committee of Public Safety, until 9 November 1799, when it was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Coup of 18 Brumaire, and replaced by the French Consulate. It gave its name to the final four years of the French Revolution.
The Council of Five Hundred, or simply the Five Hundred, was the lower house of the legislature of France under the Constitution of the Year III. It existed during the period commonly known as the Directory (Directoire), from 26 October 1795 until 9 November 1799: roughly the second half of the period generally referred to as the French Revolution.
With the revolution of 1848, the monarchical assemblies were dissolved and replaced again with a unicameral National Assembly, which Napoleon III replaced with a new version of his uncle's Legislative Corps. With the establishment of the Third Republic, the name of Chamber of Deputies was restored, and after 1876 was joined by a Senate as an upper house. The Chamber of Deputies was renamed the National Assembly in the constitution of the Fourth Republic, and is still known as that.
The French Third Republic was the system of government adopted in France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, until 10 July 1940 after France's defeat by Nazi Germany in World War II led to the formation of the Vichy government in France.
The French Fourth Republic was the republican government of France between 1946 and 1958, governed by the fourth republican constitution. It was in many ways a revival of the Third Republic that was in place from 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War to 1940 during World War II, and suffered many of the same problems. France adopted the constitution of the Fourth Republic on 13 October 1946.
