French budget passes key hurdle, setting up high-stakes showdown next week

 

French budget passes key hurdle, setting up high-stakes showdown next week

 

In a sign that bodes well for Bayrou, Socialist party leaders welcomed the agreement.

 

January 31, 2025 2:32 pm CET

By Giorgio Leali

https://www.politico.eu/article/french-budget-passes-key-hurdle-setting-up-high-stakes-showdown-next-week/

 

PARIS — France's 2025 budget cleared a key parliamentary hurdle on Friday, setting up a make-or-break moment next week in which Prime Minister François Bayrou will likely be forced to put his job on the line.

 

The joint committee comprised of lawmakers from the Senate and National Assembly tasked with hammering out a compromise reached a final agreement on Friday, meaning spending plans will now advance to a vote in both chambers of the French legislature next week.

 

Lawmakers didn't radically change Bayrou's spending plans, a mix of €53 billion in spending cuts and tax hikes aimed at reining in France’s eye-watering deficit, which reached 6.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2024 — more than twice the level permitted by EU rules. Instead they made several small tweaks to the law, such as freezing spending on medical assistance to foreigners instead of topping it up to keep up with inflation.

 

Bayrou's minority government does not have enough support to pass the budget next week, so it will likely need to use a constitutional back door that allows the government to adopt legislation without a vote but, in return, exposes it to a no-confidence vote.

 

Former Prime Minister Michel Barnier in December attempted to use that measure to pass his spending plans, but lawmakers ousted him, leaving France without a proper budget entering the new year.

 

Whereas Barnier tried to work with the far right, Bayrou is hoping the Socialists can be a potential opposition partner to help him pass his less ambitious spending plans. However, the two sides have so far been unable to strike an agreement, and controversial comments the centrist prime minister made this week on immigration have jeopardized the potential partnership.

 

The Socialist senators and MPs who sat on the joint committee voted against the bill, meaning all eyes will be on them when Monday's chamber vote arrives. While Bayrou does not need the party to vote for the bill, he will likely need its lawmakers to abstain from voting for a no-confidence measure to survive.

 

"That is not our budget. We are in the opposition," said the Socialists' leader in the National Assembly, Boris Vallaud.

 

But in a sign that potentially bodes well for Bayrou, Socialist party leaders acknowledged that they were able to obtain several concessions to preserve social spending.

 

"Would we have wanted more? Of course, of course we would have wanted more. But those who gamble on having less or having everything always take the risk of having less," Vallaud said.