After heated debates late last week, the temperature could rise another notch in the Assembly this week. On the agenda for the next few days in the chamber: the continuation of debates on the state budget for 2026 and its revenue section, which should focus on the tax on assets of more than 100 million euros popularized by the economist Gabriel Zucman.
Another hot topic: the suspension of the pension reform, which will be presented to the Social Affairs Commission on Thursday or Friday. Focus on the budget meeting schedule for the end of October.
Zucman tax or censorship
We rewind. After the rejection of the revenue part of the State finance bill on October 23, an act certainly symbolic but without major political consequences, the deputies began to work in the Friday session. Several symbolic amendments were adopted, such as the tax exemption of all overtime or the indexation of the income tax scale. The government wanted to freeze it, which would have meant more than 200,000 non-taxable households would now have to pay it.
MEPs are expected to consider in the coming hours the extension of the exceptional contribution to the profits of large companies that exceed one billion euros in turnover. However, the requested contribution, which already comes into force in the 2025 budget, must be reduced by half.
But what is eagerly awaited in the House is above all the creation of the Zucman tax. While it was first debated on Saturday, its review will finally be debated this Monday. This rhythm was intended to respond to the ultimatum issued by the socialists to Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu. Olivier Faure’s troops had demanded firm measures in favor of tax justice on Monday, brandishing the threat of censorship.
Midweek debates
Unfortunately: on Saturday afternoon, at the end of the heated debates, the Minister of Public Accounts, Amélie de Montchalin, announced that when it resumed on Monday, some articles would be examined as a priority, de facto postponing the examination of the Zucman tax until later in the week.
At the moment it is impossible to give a precise date: everything depends on the progress of the debates in the chamber, which are currently very slow, particularly with the Macronist amendments.
“The most likely thing is that it will be studied on Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning,” judges a deputy who closely follows the file.
The presidential side, however, remains stubborn against the measure, as Sébastien Lecornu already recalled. To try to achieve a victory, the PS now proposes a “light” version of the Zucman tax, therefore reduced in French.
In its initial version, the socialists wanted them to affect fortunes exceeding 100 million euros, forcing them to pay a total tax equivalent to 2% of their assets, including professional assets.
A vote on November 4th… maybe
In an amendment presented this Friday, the socialists now propose the same system, but which excludes from the tax innovative companies and family businesses, that is, the vast majority of the very rich people in France.
The wealth threshold set would now be 10 million instead of 100, and the tax would be set at 3% instead of 2%. Will this system as presented by the Renaissance and LR deputies be more acceptable? Nothing is less certain. Enough to push the socialists to push a little harder.
“At the end of this week we will know if we are going to dissolve or not,” Olivier Faure summarized on LCI this Sunday afternoon, continuing to raise the specter of a motion of no confidence that could lead to new legislative elections.
Understand: without even a “light” version of the Zucman tax, the pink party would not hesitate to overthrow the government. The calculation is entirely possible: rebel France only needed 18 small votes in mid-October to overthrow Sébastien Lecornu.
Meanwhile, discussions on the first part of the finance bill are due to end on November 4 in first reading. Will MPs have time to get to the end of the 3,000 amendments left to debate? Nothing is less certain. In which case, the debates would come to a screeching halt. Next, the deputies will examine the second part of the state budget for 2026 with the expenditure part. They would then have until November 23 to vote on the entire text.
In other words, they should try to leave room on the agenda to debate both the first and second parts of the budget and at the same time have to examine the social security budget. The mission would be almost impossible. In the absence of a vote, the text will be transmitted to the Senate in the initial version of the Government.
Suspension of pension reform in committee
Another room, another environment: the Social Affairs Commission, where work on the Social Security budget began this Monday morning. The government plans massive savings to reduce its deficit from 23 billion in 2025 to 17.5 billion in 2026. The reduction is all the more significant as spending increases each year by around 4%, driven in particular by the aging population.
First hot topic: the suspension of the pension reform. Demanded for months by the socialists, it was finally announced by Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu during his general policy speech. It raises the ire of the right in the National Assembly, but also of some of the macro snow. LR deputies presented an amendment to suppress this gesture directed at the socialists. But be patient, the debates should not take place until the end of the week. And rightly so: the article only occupies 45th place in the bill.
Mutual societies involved
Before the suspension of the pension reform, there is another issue that will potentially occupy the deputies of the Social Affairs commission starting this Monday afternoon or this Tuesday: a tax on complementary health insurance that should contribute one billion euros to the State coffers. This system contained in article 7 seeks to partially compensate for the cost of the suspension of the pension reform. But it also has every chance to pressure mutual insurance companies to increase their prices, a casus belli for the left.
In the middle of the week, MEPs should also cross swords over the new increase in deductibles at medicine boxes and in consultations, provided for in article 18. Specifically, patients will have to pay, for example, two additional euros per prescribed medicine up to a limit of 100 euros per year.
The last hot topic of the committee debates that should take place at the end of the week: the freezing of retirement pensions, which could be largely reversed thanks to the votes of LR and the left. The freezing of social benefits arouses the ire of the entire New Popular Front, but its collapse in committee promises to be more complicated.
The debates in committee will end this Friday. The social security financing bill must reach the House on November 4 in the version presented by the Government, that is, without modifications in the Social Affairs Commission. The vote is scheduled for November 12.
Here too the amendments should be multiplied, in particular on the question of the suspension of the pension reform. Maybe it hasn’t been voted on yet. In the Senate we are already preparing to reconsider retirement at age 64 if it is ever properly suspended. The temperature is not ready to drop.
Source: BFM TV
