linguistic:paraphrasing
Parliament consists of the National Assembly and the Senate. It passes statutes and votes on the budget; it controls the action of the executive through formal questioning on the floor of the houses of Parliament and by establishing commissions of inquiry. The constitutionality of the statutes is checked by the Constitutional Council, members of which are appointed by the president of the republic, the president of the National Assembly, and the president of the Senate. Former presidents of the Republic can also be members of the Council if they wish (Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and Jacques Chirac are the only former presidents to have participated in the Council's work).