Both the French National Assembly and the Senate approved the EU Reform Treaty Ratification Act on Thursday night. Thus, the so called Lisbon Treaty was ratified with the votes of the rightist majority and the socialist opposition with only several socialists and communists voting against.

The French President Nicola Sarkozy who had a major role in the successful ratification process is to sign officially the Ratification Act.

Thus, France becomes the fifth EU member state to ratify the Treaty of Lisbon amending the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community, after Hungary, Slovenia, Malta, and Romania. It is also the first of the big EU states and the first of the original six founding members of the European Community to do so.

France was the stumbling stone before the ratification of the EU Constitutional Treaty as its voters rejected it in a referendum in 2005 with the Dutch voters following suit several days later.

The Lisbon Treaty was crafted in 2007 as a substitute for the dead Constitutional Treaty.