Give grain to grind and avoid the passage in force with the recourse to 49.3. Less than a month before the official resumption of work in the National Assembly, the executive is trying at all costs to smooth things over with the opposition to get the 2023 budget to be voted on. But figures from the National Association, the Republicans and the insubordinate France have already announced that they will not vote for him.
The government is trying to appease them. Gabriel Attal, the Delegate Minister of Public Accounts, proposed “Bercy Dialogues” to “invite the entire national representation to work on the budget even before it is finalized” in the columns of the Parisian this weekend.
Staging the will to dialogue
With one objective: to present “tracks” “in anticipation of the parliamentary debate” to ensure that the finance bill (PLF) is approved with at least 289 votes in the National Assembly, the minimum for a text to be approved.
It is that, having only a relative majority since the last legislative elections, the presidential coalition is obliged to seek the voices of the opposition, keeping a cartridge in reserve: that of 49.3.
This article of the Constitution allows suspending the examination of a text and adopting it; with the responsibility commitment of the government. In the event of a risk of a majority vote against, this “would leave few options other than its use”, warned Gabriel Attal on the other hand.
“We will never run the slightest risk of seeing the budget rejected. We have a demand for responsibility towards our fellow citizens and our European partners,” the Renaissance deputy, Constance Le Grip, member of the Finance Commission, assumes with BFMTV.com.
“Convince Again”
Problem: this tool would not fit well with the desire for dialogue that the Prime Minister constantly reaffirms. To avoid this snub that would mean the failure of the Elisabeth Borne method, the executive is betting on the LR and its 59 deputies.
“We managed to pass the PLFR and the purchasing power bill, which were not easy texts. I don’t see why we wouldn’t be able to convince them this time again, ”an adviser to the Executive analyzes elsewhere.
But the deputy Les Républicains, Éric Ciotti, candidate to occupy the head of the LR, does not hear it that way. “Let him handle this majority, we will not be his crutch,” launched the unfortunate right-wing primary candidate with the JDD Sunday.
LR who could vote for
The leader of the senators of the LR, Bruno Retailleau, also a candidate for the presidency of the movement, refuses to “enter into a little game of negotiations” with the Figaroclosing the door to “political tricks”.
But in the majority ranks, not many people believe in the LR group’s block rejection of the text. Despite the often very harsh comments against the presidential coalition, various right-wing figures such as Olivier Marleix, president of the group, or Annie Genevard, interim leader of the party, voted for 96% and 78% of the texts respectively. Which gives Bercy hope.
“It is hard for me to imagine the LRs going in front of their voters and explaining that they refused to vote for our budget that will include strong measures for the French”, advances a Renaissance deputy of the Finance Commission.
Blaming the 49.3 on the right
“If they don’t want to vote for it for a reason of principle, they can always abstain and it won’t be so bad for us anymore,” deciphers another advisor to the Renaissance group in the National Assembly who does not rule out that “a few socialists and some environmentalists” do the same.
Some, among the deputies, also make a more cynical calculation, judging that the current passage could finally play into the hands of the government.
“If we have to use 49.3 when we have spread all possible hands, we can fully explain to the French that we are responsible and that the opposition is unreasonable and inconsistent,” said another Renaissance pick.
The vote on the budget “does not depend on us, it depends on the opposition”, said Bruno Le Maire, Minister of the Economy, in the columns of the echoes In the past week. The government has until September 26 and the official presentation of the budget in the Council of Ministers to try to smooth things over before entering the heart of the debates in the National Assembly.
Source: BFM TV
