The Senate approved on Sunday, December 1, the part “ recipes » of the state budget for 2025, a vote boycotted by the left which denounced a “ power stroke » from the government, threatened with censorship from Monday, December 2.
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After seven days and six nights of debate at the Palais du Luxembourg on the draft budget of the France for 2025, the senators, who support the government, voted 200 votes to 15 for the first part, dedicated to the country’s revenues.
But the session was disrupted by numerous incidents, the three left-wing groups (socialist, environmentalist, communist), in the minority, having decided to demonstrate their “ anger » by deserting the hemicycle and boycotting the last hours of debate and the vote. They castigated the choice of the government and the senatorial majority – a right-centrist alliance – who requested at the last minute the holding of a second deliberation on several dozen measures despite having been voted on during the week by show of hands.
Most often, these were taxes or measures voted against the advice of the Finance Committee and the Minister of Public Accounts Laurent Saint-Martin, sometimes with alternative alliances between the left and the centrists. “ We have just invented a new tool : 49.3 senatorial. We spend hours, day and night, voting on measures and finding compromises. And with the wave of the hand, the deliberations are swept away », Denounced socialist Thierry Cozic to AFP.
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“Coup de force” denounced by the left
“ This minority government has chosen to instead turn to its right and its extreme right by refuting all the arguments of the left », added the communist Pascal Savoldelli, the ecologist Thomas Dossus denouncing him a “ extra boost “. “ This is in no way a denial of democracy », insisted for his part the Minister of Public Accounts Laurent Saint-Martin, “ it is a question of raising the question of financial balance “, he added.
Indeed, according to government estimates, the budget as modified by the Senate, without corrections, would have worsened the budget balance by 5.8 billion euros, an impact considered incompatible with the search for 60 billion euros of savings, set by the executive.
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The second deliberation, carried out at full speed on Sunday afternoon, without the left, made it possible to partially redress the situation, by reducing this deterioration to 3 billion euros. But the senatorial majority above all promised to make savings in the “expenses” part of the bill, examined from Monday, even if everything could stop in the middle of the examination if the government was censored. “ We want a copy that is not degraded at the end of the debates », Confirmed to AFP the leader of the Republicans on the Budget, Christine Lavarde.
Reopening of debates on the taxation of energy prices
The final senatorial debates also made it possible to reopen numerous sensitive debates, in particular on the price of energy, one of the red lines of the National Rally in its threat of censorship.
The Senate had already removed the possibility for the government to increase taxation on electricity beyond its pre-energy crisis level, ahead of the announcement of Michel Barnier on the same subject. But the senatorial right had compensated for this measure with an increase in the gas tax, a system that it finally agreed to remove on Sunday, at the request of the government.
Other measures voted on during the week were ultimately removed or attenuated at the last moment, notably multiple taxes, on plastic water bottles, on capital (“ flat tax » for example), or financial transactions.
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