The Council of Ministers should ratify this Wednesday, October 23, the possibility for the government to use article 49.3 of the Constitution to pass the 2025 budget to the National Assembly, even if Michel Barnier wishes at this stage the debates to continue, said government spokesperson Maud Bregeon. “We will discuss it, as is the rule, it is a constitutional possibility available to the government,” said Maud Bregeon on France 2. However, the use of 49.3, i.e. adoption of the text without a vote “is not the will of the Prime Minister, and we will let the debates take place as much as necessary” in the National Assembly, clarified the government spokesperson.
The rule is that the use of 49.3 is preceded by a deliberation in the Council of Ministers. “But this does not prejudge the final decision on the use or not of 49.3,” clarified the government spokesperson. Maud Bregeon insisted on “the Prime Minister’s desire to respect the vote of parliamentarians even if it does not go in the direction of the government”, adding that “in the end, there will obviously be a budget for the country”.
The Barnier coalition weakened
On Tuesday, the government coalition found itself in difficulty in the National Assembly. The temporary surcharge on high incomes, supposed to bring in two billion euros in 2025, was made permanent by the National Assembly thanks to the vote of MoDem deputies, members of the “common base” supporting Michel Barnier, against the advice of the government . “A common base, which has nothing in common, which is all cracked,” commented the rebellious president of the finance committee of the National Assembly Eric Coquerel on Public Senate. Maud Bregeon believes that the government must “protect the French from the tax obsession of the New Popular Front”. Taxing, “it’s not a project, it’s a dead end,” insisted the minister.
The Barnier coalition has shown multiple signs of fragility and divisions. Thus on Tuesday she did not succeed in electing Les Républicains (LR) candidate Véronique Duby-Muller as vice-president of the Assembly, and let this position slip to the ecologist Jérémie Iordanoff.
Article 49.3 of the Constitution, used on numerous occasions by former Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne and much criticized, allows the government to have a text adopted without a vote, but exposes it to a motion of censure.