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.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.