ABSTRACT
How can we analyze the profound renewal that took place in the French National Assembly following the 2017 general elections? Does this reflect the actual advent of a new political environment that would have replaced an old partisan system in crisis, or has even disappeared? This chapter seeks to answer these questions. It is based on a detailed analysis of the available data on the sociology of MPs. To a large extent, the data is original and has been constructed by the author. With regard to several aspects – gender, age, occupation, political background – disruptions appear compared with the make up of previous Assemblies. The victory of the party La République en Marche (LREM), which was newly founded by Emmanuel Macron, has visibly brought about a radical change in political recruitment and national representation in parliament. It also conceals certain permanent characteristics, which are not very visible at first sight. While political professionalization has been partly put into question and a ‘fresh start’ made, the recurrent crisis of political representativeness has not been solved.
