Following his surprise reappointment last week as prime minister barely four days after his resignation, Sébastien Lecornu declared that his new team would be “a government with a mission to give France a budget before the end of the year”.
To meet the complex legislative timetable necessary to do that, he had to present his amended draft budget to the National Assembly yesterday, and did so within hours of announcing his new, largely unchanged, centre-right cabinet, the seventh of president Emmanuel Macron’s term. The 2026 budget could then be approved immediately by the council of ministers and submitted without delay to the politically gridlocked parliament
Macron warned at the start of yesterday’s debate that he would call a gAeneral election if Lecornu’s government is defeated on a no-confidence vote, a prospect that only the far right and hard left relish.
Lecornu’s budget, which aims to bring France’s spiralling deficit to below 5 percent of GDP from its current 5.4 per cent, was initially proposed by his predecessor, Francois Bayrou, who had aimed for a more ambitious 4.6 per cent. To break the parliamentary logjam, and particularly to bring on board the Socialist party, Lecornu has also been forced to promise not to use a parliamentary bypass mechanism. He has also deferred controversial plans to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 until after the next presidential election in 2027.
READ MORE
The budget bill includes several measures to raise taxes on the wealthy, but not the billionaire “Zucman” tax proposed by the left. It will maintain an “exceptional” levy on large corporate profits, will limit certain tax breaks and will keep income tax and social security brackets frozen despite inflation. The cuts proposed are vague.
Lecornu’s outreach may be enough to secure at least majority Socialist support. Along with Macron’s centrists, that could prevent no-confidence motions tabled by the hard-left La France Insoumise and far-right Rassemblement National from toppling the new cabinet.
