ARCHIVE – People stroll through the La Defense business district outside Paris. After months of wrangling, highly indebted France finally receives a budget for the current year. Photo: Thibault Camus/AP/dpa
Keystone
After months of wrangling, highly indebted France has finally received a budget for the current year.
Before the budget is officially approved, minority Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu still has to survive two votes of no confidence in the National Assembly this Monday evening. These were requested by Marine Le Pen’s right-wing nationalists on the one hand and the left, Greens and Communists on the other.
Their attempt to topple the government is a reaction to the fact that Lecornu pushed the budget through the National Assembly without a final vote after an unsuccessful search for a compromise with a special article of the constitution. However, the centrist government is not expected to fall. Lecornu has secured the support of the Socialists by making concessions. In recent weeks, the prime minister has therefore already survived four votes of no confidence relating to the budget.
Budget adoption a positive signal for the economy
Even if there is not much left of the originally planned austerity budget, the adoption of the budget is likely to be welcomed by France’s economy and EU partner countries such as Germany. Companies will once again have the clarity they need to invest and hire staff. The public sector will also be able to invest again. The prospect of France tackling its debt problem is also a positive signal to the EU. After all, the budget deficit is set to fall to five percent, even if there were previously more ambitious targets.
For politically divided France, where none of the political camps has a majority in parliament and forging coalitions is unusual, the search for a budget compromise was, as in the previous year, a feat of strength. Lecornu’s predecessors François Bayrou and Michel Barnier had fallen out over budget issues in parliament.
Government reshuffle planned
Lecornu, a close confidant of President Emmanuel Macron, had declared the adoption of a budget to be his main goal when he took office with the current government in the fall. Now that he has overcome this obstacle, he can focus on other pressing issues such as agricultural and energy policy and the planned decentralization. And a small government reshuffle is also likely to take place this month, partly because Culture Minister Rachida Dati is running for mayor of Paris in the local elections in March.