More than three months after its submission to Parliament, the draft state budget for 2025 was adopted by the Senate, this Thursday, January 23, at first reading, a first step taken for the government of François Bayrou despite the opposition still intact from the socialists.
The upper house, with a right-centrist majority which supports the government, validated the finance bill by 217 votes to 105. Socialists, ecologists and communists voted against.
An almost insoluble equation for the executive
Initiated by Michel Barnier in October, rejected by the National Assembly at first reading, suspended after the censure of the former Prime Minister and finally taken up by François Bayrou, this finance bill (PLF) experienced a chaotic journey through Parliament. Crucial for the State which is currently idling under the exceptional regime of a special law passed at the end of the year, the budget represents an almost insoluble equation for the executive, deprived of an absolute majority in the National Assembly but summoned by Brussels to restore public finances.
“It is an extremely difficult exercise, very demanding, but which is obligatory. A France without a budget is a France at a standstill and which is also widening its deficit,” the government spokesperson insisted on Wednesday, Sophie Primas, deeming it “imperative” that the text can be promulgated before the end of February.
But opposition from the left remains very strong: if the Socialist Party did not vote for the first motion of censure targeting Prime Minister François Bayrou, it voted against the budget like the entire left. It is “an austerity budget that digs into the pockets of those who did not create the problem”, launched the leader of the socialist senators on the budget, Thierry Cozic, at the opening of the debates. “Do not think that our clemency will come automatically,” he added to the attention of the Minister of the Economy Eric Lombard, calling on him to make new concessions to resist censorship.
The text will be submitted on January 30 to a meeting of deputies and senators responsible for arriving at a common version likely to resist censorship by the National Assembly.