2012 French legislative election
Legislative elections were held in France on 10 and 17 June 2012 to select the members of the 14th National Assembly of the Fifth Republic, a little over a month after the presidential election run-off held on 6 May.
Official campaign posters in the 5th constituency of Val-de-Marne. (One of the posters has been partly torn off: a not infrequent occurrence.)
National Assembly (France)
The National Assembly is the lower house of the bicameral French Parliament under the Fifth Republic, the upper house being the Senate. The National Assembly's legislators are known as députés, meaning "delegate" or "envoy" in English; etymologically, it is a cognate of the English word deputy, the standard term for legislators in many parliamentary systems.
National Assembly (France)
Deputies wear tricolor sashes on official occasions outside the Assembly or on public marches, like other elected officials in France; former President of the National Assembly Bernard Accoyer is pictured here.
The Palais Bourbon in Paris, where the National Assembly meets
Ceiling paintings in the Library of the Assemblée nationale in the Palais Bourbon, on a series of cupolas and pendentives, are by Eugène Delacroix.