Less than two years after the previous legislative elections, France voted to elect the 577 members of the Assemblée Nationale in snap parliamentary elections that followed French President Emmanuel Macron's decision to dissolve the chamber. The new MPs will meet on July 18 for their first session. While this Assemblée stands out for not having a clear political majority, its profile remains similar to that of the previous legislature: Women are poorly represented.

With 36% of women, parity is even further behind

Only 208 women, compared with 369 men, will sit in the next Assemblée, representing just over a third (36%) of all MPs. This is the second time in a row that the proportion of women in parliament has fallen: There were 224 female MPs in 2017, but just 215 in 2022.

No major political force has achieved parity. The Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) left-wing alliance has the highest proportion of female MPs, with 41.2% of women, followed by Emmanuel Macron's coalition, Ensemble (38.7%).

Average age unchanged

While the composition of the Assemblée Nationale has changed significantly, the average age of MPs has remained more or less the same. From 48 years and 6 months after the 2022 elections, it now stands at 49 years and 2 months.

The youngest and oldest MPs are both from the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party. As in the previous Assemblée, at 81 years old, MP José Gonzalez will be the oldest MP. Born in January 2002, 22-year-old Flavien Termet will be the youngest.

The RN also has the youngest political group, with an average age of just over 47, just ahead of the NFP alliance of parties.

408 MPs were reelected

Of the 577 lawmakers elected, 408 were already MPs in the previous legislature. Among the major political groups, Les Républicains (right) and Ensemble have the highest proportion of reelected MPs, almost 84%. Counting the members of Prime Minister Gabriel Attal's government, who had ceded their seats to their substitutes, 155 of Ensemble's 168 MPs were reelected (92.3%). In contrast, and unsurprisingly, the RN has the most new MPs.

Professions not representative of the French population

Higher socio-professional categories are over-represented in the Assemblée, with 347 MPs classified as "executives and higher intellectual professions," i.e. 74% of active MPs (excluding retirees and people with no professional activity). By way of comparison, white-collar workers represented just 21.6% of people in employment in France in 2021, according to the INSEE national statistics bureau.

In contrast, blue-collar workers, who represent 19.1% of the French working population, have very little presence in this new Assemblée. The NFP has three blue-collar workers, and the RN, one.