College and Research Libraries B y A . D . R O B E R T S and F . P . W O J E W O D S K I French Parliamentary Documents* Mr. Roberts is a reference librarian, Service to Readers Unit, and Mrs. Woje- wodski is a member of the professional staff, Acquisition Unit, United Nations Library. THIS essay deals with the documents is-sued at the present time by the two chambers of the French Parliament, the Assemblee Nationale and the Conseil de la Republique. Some notes on the documents of the two consultative organs, the Conseil Economique and the Assemblee de l'Union Frangaise, have also been added. Before describing the documents themselves a brief statement of the functions of these bodies, as provided by the Constitution of 27 Octo- ber 1946, may be helpful. T h e adoption of this Constitution did not, however, lead to many changes in the form of publication of parliamentary documents. M a n y of the series described in this essay have long his- tories. T h e Assemblee Nationale is elected di- rectly and it alone has the power of finally approving proposed legislation. T h e Con- seil de la Republique renders advisory opinions on bills approved by the Assemblee Nationale. If the Conseil de la Republique reports that it is in disagreement with the proposals of the Assemblee Nationale, the latter body must again examine the bill. T h e Assemblee Nationale then decides finally whether or not the bill shall become * The substance of this paper is based on information given us while we were in Paris during the Sixth General Assembly of the United Nations (Nov. 1 9 5 1 - Feb. 1 9 5 2 ) by M. Luca of the Service de Legislation Etrangere of the Assemblee Nationale and by M. Andre Roussy, Librarian of the Conseil de la Republique. Both these gentlemen were most helpful to us in this and other matters. They are not, however, responsible for any errors that this paper might contain. We have also drawn freely on other writings on the subject. Some of these are mentioned at the end of this article. law. If an absolute majority of the sena- teurs in the Conseil de la Republique ap- proved a bill differing from the one passed in the Assemblee Nationale, a similar ma- jority is necessary at the second reading in the Assemblee Nationale for the bill to pass. T h e Conseil Economique may examine all bills of an economic and social character (excluding the budget) and others which the Assemblee Nationale may submit to it. T h e Assemblee de l'Union Frangaise advises on bills and proposals sent to it by the As- semblee Nationale, the French Government or the Governments of the associated states. It can also submit proposals relating to the overseas territories to the French Govern- ment. T h e most convenient way of describing the French parliamentary documents seems to be the illogical one of analyzing the con- tents of the Journal officiel de la Republique Trancaise. T h e Journal officiel is not itself a parliamentary publication but an adminis- trative one. It does, however, include many parliamentary documents; moreover, of the publications described in this essay, it is probably the one best known in English- speaking countries. It is published daily and one may subscribe separately to certain of its constituent parts. It has four principal parts, the first of which is entitled Lois et decrets, arretes, circulates, avis, communications, informa- tions et annonces. T h i s part includes all the laws approved by the Assemblee N a - tionale and also decrees, orders, etc. made by the executive branch of the government. It may be said to include all the legal texts of general interest concerning metropolitan France and some texts concerning the over- JULY, 1.953 255 seas territories of the French Union. T h e r e * are, however, some arretes and circulaires which are not included. T h i s part of the Journal officiel has monthly and annual sub- ject indexes. A chronological table follows each subject index. T h i s includes refer- ences to laws, decrees, etc. "of general in- terest" only; enactments concerning in- dividuals have to be sought in the subject index. T h i s Lois et decrets part also in- cludes, from time to time, special supple- ments, such as those listing persons who have obtained military and other medals. French laws are also collected into a series of volumes entitled Recueil des lois; these are printed on the presses of the Assemblee Nationale. T h e laws are printed in chrono- logical order, with information about the parliamentary documents issued concerning the enactments when they were in the bill stage. T h e annexes to some laws are not included in these volumes. T h e y have chronological tables and an annual subject index is included, on colored paper, in the volume containing the laws for the latter part of each year. T h e r e is also a subject index in the volume completing the laws approved by the first legislature of the As- semblee Nationale, i.e. covering the period J a n u a r y 1 9 5 1 - J u n e 1 9 5 1 . T h e decrets and arretes are not cumulated into volumes and the Journal officiel remains the best general source for finding their texts, although many of them also appear in the publications of the various ministries and elsewhere. T h e second part of the Journal officiel is entitled Debats parlementaires. T h i s contains the official records of the proceed- ings of the Assemblee Nationale, the Con- seil de la Republique and the Assemblee de l'Union Frangaise. T h e three sections are in separately paginated fascicules. Debates appear in the Journal officiel on the day fol- lowing that of the seance concerned and, naturally, this section only appears when the assemblies are in session. T h e texts of the debates as recorded in Debats parle- mentaires are established by the official stenographers and in certain cases they have been submitted to the deputes or senateurs before printing; they are verbatim texts. Each of the three sections has an annual index of names. T h e r e is a combined an- nual subject index for the Assemblee N a - tionale and the Conseil de la Republique, while the Assemblee de l'Union Frangaise has its own subject index. Prior to their appearance in the Journal officiel the debates in the Assemblee N a - tionale and the Conseil de la Republique have been recorded in two series of Comptes rendus analytiques officiels. These records are prepared by special "Services des Comptes Rendus Analytiques Officiels" and they are printed on the presses of the re- spective assemblies. T h e y are made avail- able to all deputes, senateurs and accredited journalists at great speed. Sheets are also posted in the lobbies as soon as they are ready. These Comptes rendus are, on the average, about two-thirds of the length of the verbatim report; they are not official texts. Those of the Assemblee Nationale are mimeographed, while those of the Con- seil de la Republique are printed; neither series has an index. T h e texts of the debates as published in the Debats parlementaires section of the Journal officiel appear, after a considerable delay, in three series of volumes, one for each assembly, entitled Annales—debats. T h e pagination remains the same; the An- nales—debats are, however, printed on bet- ter paper, they have more detailed indexes by speaker and subject (in separate volumes) and they are sewn into paper covers. T h e y are usually large volumes which need to be bound promptly by li- braries that intend to keep them perma- nently. Libraries may feel able to discard the Debats parlementaires section of the Journal officiel when the equivalent section 256 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES of Annales—debats is on their shelves. Written questions and, later, the ques- tions and their answers, if they are obtained, are included in Debats parlementaires. They have separate annual indexes, one for each assembly. In these indexes the ques- tions are grouped according to the govern- ment departments responsible for answering them. T h e y subsequently appear in A n- nales—debats. T h e Assemblee Nationale has collected the written questions posed during the second half of 1949 into a separate volume of Questions ecrites ( 1 9 5 1 ) ; it is not certain whether the series w i l l be continued. T h e third part of the Journal officiel is entitled Documents parlementaires; it con- tains the texts of bills, reports, etc. intro- duced in the three assemblies. A t the end of the year separate chronological tables for the documents of each assembly are pub- lished. Before appearing together in the various fascicules of Documents parlemen- taires each item is published separately as an Impression. Some Impressions are single sheets of an ephemeral nature, while others, such as certain bills and their annexes and certain reports of commissions, are volumes of considerable importance. T h e word Im- pression does not appear on the documents themselves; it is, however, the name gen- erally applied to them. T h e annexes to the bills setting out the budget proposals are not reprinted in the Documents parlemen- taires; they do, however, appear as annexes to Impressions. T h e Impressions are numbered quartos, the numbers of the Assemblee Nationale commencing at one at the beginning of each legislature, while those of the Conseil de la Republique begin afresh each year. T h e numbers are allocated in advance. Some proposals are withdrawn before they have actually been introduced; in such cases the Impression w i l l merely have the allotted number and the name of the sponsor. Such an Impression is called a carton; cartons never appear in the Documents parlemen- taires, which explains some gaps in the num- bers in that publication. Moreover, the Impressions do not always appear in Docu- ments parlementaires in an exact numerical order. Some typical headings found on Impres- sions will now be described. A projet de loi is a bill introduced by the government, while a proposition de loi is a bill intro- duced by a member of an assembly. Bills are sent for examination to committees (coTnmissions) ; these committees issue rap- ports. If more than one committee is in- volved, the other committees may issue avis. It can be decided that a bill be sent back to a commission for further study or perhaps for the coordination of the original text with the amendments that have been pro- posed. Such a procedure may give rise to a further series of rapports, avis, etc. Reso- lutions are decisions on procedural matters, suggestions addressed to the government, or the expression of an assembly's sentiments on important national or international events; they do not have the force of law. T h u s some of the Impressions are headed Proposition de resolution. T h e Conseil de la Republique and the Assemblee de l'Union Frangaise publish an- nual summary indexes of their Impressions. Amendements presented are mimeo- graphed and distributed before the debates; they are not numbered in the Impressions series. Most Impressions are printed on the presses of the assembly concerned. T h e r e are, however, some budget documents which are printed elsewhere, as well as some Im- pressions which appear in mimeographed form. W e have noted that .the Debats parle- mentaires section of the Journal officiel is republished in series entitled Annales— debats. In the same w a y the Documents parlementaires section is republished in three JULY, 1953 257 series of Annales—documents, after some delay. Those of the Conseil de la Republi- que and the Assemblee de l'Union Frangaise include indexes with names and subjects in the one alphabet. T h e Assemblee Nationale publishes indexes to both its Annales— debats and its Annales—documents at the end of each legislature, with the title Tables des archives. Legislatures are elected for five years and the Tables des archives for the legislature that completed its term in J u n e 1 9 5 1 are expected to appear during 1 9 5 2 . Before returning to the Journal officiel to describe its fourth part, we may note here some separate series of parliamentary docu- ments which may be included under the general term hnpressions but which do not appear in the principal numbered series of quarto Impressions just described and which, for the most part, are not reprinted in the Journal officiel. First, there are the feuilletons of the assemblies. These are octavo-size leaflets which are published daily when the assemblies are sitting. T h e y contain the order of the day and a list of the hnpressions distributed on that day. T h e Bulletin des commissions gives in a very abbreviated form a report of the work of the parliamentary committees. T h e n there are some octavo-size Impressions which give the texts of bills adopted by the Assemblee Nationale and the texts of avis issued by the Conseil de la Republique. Returning now to the Journal officiel, its fourth part consists of what may be termed auxiliary documents (documents para-parle- rnentaires). These consist of the Avis et rapports of the Conseil Economique, with their annual index. T h e most important of these reports and advices are reprinted in pamphlet form in. a series entitled Etudes et travaux which is published by Presses Universitaires de France. Etudes et travaux, emanating as they do from a pri- vate publisher, are not considered parlia- mentary publications by French librarians. T h e Bulletin du Conseil Economique con- tains the reports of the debates in that body. It is a separate publication, though it is printed by the Imprimerie des J o u r n a u x Officiels and looks like a part of the Journal officiel. F r o m time to time the latter pub- lication also includes Annexes administra- tives; these are mostly reports on a variety of topics emanating from government de- partments. T h e various assemblies also publish works containing their rules of procedure, their lists of members, etc. These additional items will not be described here. T h e two current bibliographies of French Government publications that we have, the fortnightly Bibliographie selective des pub- lications officielles franqaises (a joint pub- lication of the Comite de Coordination pour la Documentation des Sciences Sociales and the Commission Interministerielle de Docu- mentation et D i f f u s i o n ) and Supplement F of Bibliographie de la France both begin with sections devoted to Lois et traites and Assemblies constitutionnelles. Here one finds recorded new volumes in the Annales series, volumes of the Recueil des lois, etc. In addition, especially important texts in the Journal officiel are listed separately in the first of the bibliographies just men- tioned. T h e individual Impressions are only exceptionally recorded in these bibliog- raphies. T h e r e is an excellent account given in the preface to a catalog of French G o v - ernment documents published in 1 9 4 0 ; it describes many practices which survived the constitutional change in 1946 and which are still current today.1 Present day parlia- 1 France. Ministere de l'lnstruction Publique. In- ventaire general des publications officielles. ler serie: Institutions centrales de I'etat. T. i. Publications ad- ministratives et techniques, 1937-1938. P a r i s , Librairie Berger-Levrault, 1940, pp. xxxvii-lv. See also Dam- pierre, J . de. Les publications officielles des pouvoirs publics. P a r i s , A . Picard 1942, pp. 29-32, 1 0 9 - 1 1 4 , 124-130. (Continued on page 265) 258 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES fonso XIII. M a d r i d , R e v i s t a de occidente, [ 1 9 5 2 ] 2 v . An alphabetical dictionary of persons, events, and subjects in the history of Spain up to the end of the reign of Alfonso X I I I in 1 9 3 1 . Articles are generally brief, though some of the more important entries cover several pages; all are signed. Bibliographical sources, not given in the text, appear in an Indice historigrafico (v.2, p. 1 4 9 3 - 1 5 1 9 ) , which is followed by a chronology and a number of sketch-maps. Specialists were in charge of each period or field, and were assisted by a number of collaborating scholars. E l w e l l - S u t t o n , L a u r e n c e P a u l . A Guide to Iranian Area Study. W a s h . , A m e r . C o u n c i l of L e a r n e d Societies, 1 9 5 2 . 235P- $4~ Compiled under the auspices of the Com- mittee on N e a r Eastern Studies of the Ameri- can Council of Learned Societies. Includes survey articles on the geography, population and language, social evolution, his- tory, administration, economic structure, re- ligion, intellectual development, literature and arts. These are followed by a Chronology, p. 1 1 0 - 1 6 1 , and a Bibliography, p.162-235. E t t i n g h a u s e n , R i c h a r d . A Selected and Annotated Bibliography of Books and Periodicals in Western Languages Deal- ing with the Near and Middle East: with Special Emphasis on Modern and Medieval Times. W a s h . , M i d d l e E a s t Inst., 1 9 5 2 . 1 u p . $ 1 . 5 0 . Lists 1 7 1 9 western-language books, and the more important periodicals, with very brief annotations. Includes titles published through Summer 1 9 5 1 . Selection w a s made by a group of scholars and the list is intended primarily for the use of colleges and libraries. Rosenthal, F r a n z . History of Muslim Historiography. L e i d e n , B r i l l , 1 9 5 2 . 5 5 8 p . $ 1 2 . A comprehensive history and discussion of historical writing among the Moslem peoples. Rossler, H e l l m u t h and F r a n z , G i i n t h e r . Bio gr aphis ches Worterbuch zur deut- schen Geschichte. M i i n c h e n , Olden- bourg, 1 9 5 2 - L f g . 1 - 3 , Abbe-Hessen. ( I n p r o g r e s s ) . D M 4 5 the set. T o be complete in about 45 signatures (8-9 to a L f g . ) : parts to appear to 2-monthly intervals. W i l l include some 2,000 individual biographies, in all fields and from Roman times up to 1933, mainly of Germans but also of some foreigners important in the history of Germany. Brief bibliographical notes. p. ix-xix, index by period; p. x x - x x x i , index by field or profession (subdivided by period) ; p. xxxii-xlviii, index by region (sub- divided by period). Westfalische Bibliographie, hrsg. von der Historischen Kommission f i i r W e s t f a l e n in V e r b i n d u n g mit dem V e r e i n f i i r Geschichte und A l t e r t u m s k u n d e W e s t - falens. B e a r b . v o n , A l o i s B o m e r und H e r m a n n D e g e r i n g . M i i n s t e r i. W e s t f . , V e r l a g Regensberg, 1 9 5 2 - L f g . 1 - 4 . ( V e r o f f e n t l i c h u n g e n der Historischen Kommission des Provinzialinstituts f i i r W e s t f a l i s c h e Landes- und V o l k s k u n d e . X X I V . ) ( I n p r o g r e s s ) . L f g . 1-4 (Bogen 1 - 2 0 ) , p.1-320. Classed arrangement. An extensive bibli- ography of Westphalian materials including periodical articles. French Parliamentary Documents (Continued from page 258) mentary documents are also described in an detailed study by L i d d e r d a l e . 3 excellent though more general, article by M . Roussier entitled " L e s publications officielles du G o u v e r n e m e n t f r a n g a i s . " 2 I n E n g l i s h much information about parlia- mentary documents has been included in a 2 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. European Center. Les publications officielles et la documentation internationale, ed. M. Roussier, Paris, 1952, pp. 31-52. 3 D. W . S. Lidderdale, The Parliament of France. London, The Hansard Society [ 1 9 5 1 ] , especially pp. 1 1 6 - 1 2 2 ; 1 7 4 - 1 9 2 . JULY, 1953 265