Claude Bartolone a French socialist with Maltese ancestry has been elected president of the French National Assembly.
Bartolene, who has an Italian father and a Maltese mother, was born in Tunis in 1951. He has been elected to the Assembly from the Seine-Saint-Denis department since 1981.
He served as President of the General Council of Seine-Saint-Denis since 2008.
In today's vote for president of the Assembly Bartolone won 298 votes against 185 votes for the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) candidate Bernard Accoyer, who held the post during the last parliamentary term.