Opposition and minority groups in the troubled waters of the French National Assembly

The article deals with the gradual development of opposition and minority groups status in the French National Assembly. In the seventy years since the adoption of the Constitution of the Fifth Republic, collective and individual guarantees for parliamentarians have been fully consolidated, especially since the 2008 constitutional reform was incorporated into the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly. The article addresses the crucial issue of the powers of referral (saisines) granted by the Constitution to parliamentary minorities and the modalities of their implementation by Parliament. In the French political system, the ethno-national factor does not emerge at this level as a defining feature of parliamentary minorities. The essay concludes with some considerations on the ongoing systemic crisis in the functioning of the French Parliament within the framework of the general institutional crisis of the French Fifth Republic.