ABSTRACT
If one had to pinpoint the centre of political life in France between the wars, the ‘inner sanctum’, most people would choose the Palais-Bourbon, the classical building that looks across the Seine towards the Place de la Concorde. Etched in gold on its façade were the words Chambre des Députés. Inside is the ‘house without windows’ or hémicycle, in which the directly elected députés sat during the Third Republic, as they do under the Fifth, their political views reflected in the seating arrangements from left to right, echoing the origins of these terms during the Revolution of 1789. Behind the debating chamber is a warren of corridors and committee rooms, the coulisses in which unofficial politics can take place. A mile to the east, the Palais du Luxembourg houses the Senate, the senior assembly of the French republic. Indirectly elected, the senators have always had longer terms of office than the députés, and are less affected by short-term political change.
