The 2023 parliamentary budget marathon begins this Monday afternoon in the hemicycle in a highly flammable environment. If the executive plays big and most likely will have to resort to 49.3, the other parliamentary groups are also expected to take their turn.
• The government: 49.3, far from its new method of dialogue
Bruno Le Maire and Gabriel Attal, the two tenants of the Ministry of Economy, have tried to smooth things over in a National Assembly without an absolute majority through the Bercy dialogues. Without convincing.
Enough so that the use of 49.3 is almost certain. This article of the Constitution allows suspending the examination of a text and adopting it, subject to the responsibility commitment of the government.
Three options are on the table: the use of this tool at the end of the first part of the debates on October 19. Enough so that the government shows that it will have tried to exchange with all the benches of the hemicycle until the end. But more than 3,500 amendments have been tabled, which promises very long debates and a difficult schedule to meet, which makes this option unlikely.
Second hint: lead the debates as long as possible and draw the 49.3 if the debates are no longer moving forward. The method pretends to say that the government will have done everything possible and to reject the responsibility of the blockade to the opposition.
Last possibility on the table: use 49.3 from the first days of debate. If the maneuver aims to avoid the prolongation of the debates, it also gives pause to opponents of the government who could point the finger at the lack of parliamentary debate.
Officially, the government refuses to advance a precise timetable.
“I expect a lot from the debate, but there must still be a debate that there is no obstruction or will to block,” Gabriel Attal advanced this Monday in France Inter.
• The LRs: tempted to exaggerate the opposition in the midst of an internal struggle
The government is counting on the 60 deputies of the LR to achieve dialogue with part of the hemicycle in the coming days. Despite his outspoken public opposition to Emmanuel Macron, right-wing elected officials have voted in favor of nearly every text since the start of his term. Annie Genevard, number 2 of the LR, said that she yes to 96% of the texts. Éric Ciotti, candidate for the presidency of the LR, voted in favor of 82% of the bills.
But the internal context could weigh heavily. In the midst of the race for the presidency of the party, the temptation to show their difference with the macronies to convince the militants of LR is important.
This is enough to worry some on the right who refuse to oppose the government on several measures that hold promise for their electorate, such as increasing the number of police and gendarmes.
• La Nupes: united after a nightmarish comeback
Caught up in the media storm, between the Adrien Quatennens affair and the Julien Bayou affair, the Nupes are relieved to see the finance bill coming and should form a common front. Ecologists, socialists and rebels will present a counter-budget separately.
To watch a single visage, all Nupes will meet under the banderole of La France insoumise on October 16 for a “marche against the vie chère” – malgré des frictions après a tweet by Jean-Luc Mélenchon – et tempter une demonstration de force dans the street. What hope to give more scope to his opposition in the hemicycle.
However, some socialist deputies, opposed to the Nupes, might want to have their own score heard and potentially vote for certain articles in the text.
• The RN: shows that the party is credible in France’s finances
Marine Le Pen has already warned: her 88 deputies will vote against the budget, which she sees as “the marker of a policy” contested by her party.
Eager to assert her credibility on budget matters, often seen as her weak point, the chairwoman of the RN group will be keen to show that her deputies are up to the task. The party played the sobriety card by submitting fewer than 300 amendments. They come from the presidential program of Marine Le Pen and will be defended by the new faces with a well-done head that the party likes.
Jean-Philippe Tanguy, whose launch “Silence for France” had made the heyday of social networks, Thomas Ménagé and Philippe Lottiaux, Éric Zemmour’s heartthrob in the last general elections in the Var, should take the light in the hemicycle.
Once approved, with or without 49.3, the budget should aim to contain the public deficit to 5% of GDP, allowing in particular an increase in the income of teachers and the creation of 10,000 civil servant positions.
Source: BFM TV
