National Assembly

What it is

The Palais Bourbon is where the National Assembly, the lower house of the French parliament, has sat since the Revolution turned a princess's private mansion into the seat of the republic's elected chamber.

The palace was built from 1722 for the Duchess of Bourbon, a legitimised daughter of Louis XIV, on a plot facing the Seine across from Place de la Concorde. The Revolution confiscated it as national property in 1791, and by 1798 the newly formed Council of Five Hundred had installed itself inside, giving the building the legislative role it has held, with interruptions, ever since.

Napoleon added the building's most recognisable feature between 1806 and 1810: a Greek temple front of twelve Corinthian columns facing the river, built to answer the Madeleine church across the Seine and complete a matched pair of monumental facades along the axis running to the Champs-Élysées.

Checked 2026-08-24 · Source

What's inside

A working legislature: a horseshoe debating chamber, committee rooms, and a library whose ceiling is one of Delacroix's largest commissions.

The Salle des Séances, the debating chamber, seats the 577 deputies of the National Assembly in a semicircle facing the speaker's chair, under a painted hemicycle depicting figures from France's history and legislative tradition. The library runs along one wing and holds Delacroix's cycle of ceiling paintings, completed over the 1840s, tracing the history of civilisation from antiquity onward across five domed bays.

Public visits reach only a defined route through the historic rooms and the chamber gallery when the Assembly is not in session; the working offices and most committee rooms are not part of it.

Checked 2026-08-24 · Source

How long to spend

About an hour for the guided route through the historic rooms and the chamber.

Visits run as scheduled guided tours rather than free wandering, since the building is an active legislature and security controls the pace. The route covers the entrance hall, the library with the Delacroix ceiling, and the chamber itself when it is empty of sitting deputies, with a guide narrating the history of each room along the way.

There is no self-paced option and no shortening the group's pace, so the hour is fairly fixed regardless of interest in any one room.

Checked 2026-08-24 · Source

Season and crowds

Visits run on a fixed guided-tour schedule set by the Assembly rather than at a visitor's convenience, so the useful question is which day has a tour rather than which hour of the day.

Tours are suspended when the chamber is sitting or during recess periods that vary year to year, and security requirements mean a passport or ID and advance registration are standard rather than optional.

Because the building is a working legislature and not a museum, its opening pattern follows the parliamentary calendar rather than the tourist season, and it is worth checking that calendar before building a day's plan around a visit.

Checked 2026-08-24 · Source

Tickets

Visits are free but require advance registration, since they run as scheduled security-screened tours through a working legislature rather than open admission.

Registration is typically through the Assembly's own visitor service, and identification is checked against the booking at entry. Current registration procedures are not published on the sources this page uses and are not reproduced here.

There is no walk-up entry and no ticket to buy on site — a visit that has not been booked in advance does not happen.

Checked 2026-08-24 · Source

Getting there

Place du Palais-Bourbon, on the Left Bank facing the Pont de la Concorde, in the 7th arrondissement.

Assemblée Nationale on Métro line 12 sits directly outside, named for the building itself, and Invalides on RER C and Métro line 8 and 13 is a short walk south. The Pont de la Concorde crosses directly to Place de la Concorde and the Champs-Élysées axis on the Right Bank.

The building's river facade faces the bridge and the obelisk across the water, part of the single sightline Napoleon's colonnade was built to complete.

Checked 2026-08-24 · Source

What to watch out for

Security is airport-style and strict, since the building is a sitting legislature: identification is required, bags are screened, and items that would pass at a museum can be refused here.

Visits are guided-group only and run to the schedule the Assembly sets, which is frequently interrupted by sitting days, recess and events specific to the parliamentary calendar rather than the tourist one — a visit planned without checking that calendar can arrive to find no tour running.

Photography inside the chamber and working areas is restricted during an active tour in ways a museum visit would not be, and a guide will say where a camera may or may not come out.

Checked 2026-08-24 · Source

Photography

The river facade — twelve Corinthian columns under a pediment, seen across the Pont de la Concorde with the obelisk in the foreground — is the building's signature image and the one visible without a ticket at all.

Inside, the Delacroix library ceiling is the standout subject when a tour reaches it, though photography of the working chamber and offices follows the guide's instructions rather than a visitor's own judgement.

From across the river at Place de la Concorde, the palace and the Madeleine line up on either end of the same axis, a pairing that is easier to see in a wide shot from the bridge itself than from either building's own doorstep.

Checked 2026-08-24 · Source

Where it is

• 1 hour

  1 min walk · Paris 7e Arrondissement

  Sphere of Human Rights

  • Notable
  • Art and culture venue
• 45 min

  1 min walk · Paris 7e Arrondissement

  Hôtel de Lassay

  • Must see
  • Historic monument
• 1 hour

  2 min walk · Paris 7e Arrondissement

  Jean-Baptiste Colbert

  • High · Heritage site
  • Art and culture venue

External links

• Official site
• View on Wikidata