The government can breathe again: France is (finally) on track to have a budget for 2025.
After days of dithering, socialist lawmakers announced on Monday that they would reject the no-confidence vote expected to be tabled if the government forces the budget bill through parliament without a vote this Monday – a move made possible by the French constitution.
Given how parliamentary voting works, and barring a major last-minute upset, this means that even if the far right votes in favour, the no-confidence vote will fail and the government will remain in place. Mechanically, the 2025 budget will become law as early as Wednesday.
This should come as a great relief to the government, which until now was unsure whether it would be around by the end of the week. Both the Socialists and the far-right had kept their cards close to their chests until the last moment.
Had they joined forces with other left-wing groups against the government – as they did in December to bring down the Michel Barnier – the government would have fallen.
The budget bill, presented to parliament on Monday afternoon, is expected to force the French government to make savings of around €50 billion in the hope of reducing the deficit to 5.4% of GDP by the end of the year from 6% currently.
It is also likely to reassure the European Commission, which has recently expressed concerns about French public spending and even dragged Paris into the Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) over the summer.
The Socialists have long wavered on their strategy. While some wanted to scrap a budget they feared would bring back austerity, others acknowledged they had won a number of victories, including a review of the 2023 pension law and the protection of 4,000 education jobs that previous drafts had sought to cut.
By refusing to support the motion of no confidence, they will face the wrath of the left-wing La France Insoumise (LFI). Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party had warned that a no vote by the Socialists would spell the end of the left-wing New Popular Front alliance, an ad hoc parliamentary partnership that until recently brought together the LFI, the Socialists, the Communists and the Greens.
The Socialists’ decision on Monday “is a political mistake”, senior LFI lawmaker Alexis Corbière told parliament’s TV channel, as the far-left party hopes to see President Emmanuel Macron resign and trigger early presidential elections.
The Socialists say they intend to table a standalone no-confidence motion as soon as both the general and social security budgets have been passed, to denounce Prime Minister François Bayrou’s claims last week that there is a “sense of flooding” of immigrants in France, words traditionally used by the far right.
There is little hope, however, that the government or the right side of the aisle will ever join forces – a prospect that is almost certainly doomed to failure.
[DE]
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