After accusing the latter of “blocking” on Tuesday, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne should resort to it by going to the Assembly in the afternoon, the scene of serial defeats for the macronists on votes on budgetary amendments.
This triggering on Wednesday is “probable”, government spokesman Olivier Véran said on Tuesday, while parliamentarians no longer had any doubts about the timing, after eight days of sometimes heated debates.
Tempers flared again at the end of the session on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday in the Assembly, when Nupes deputies criticized the presidential camp for “pretending” to debate “while waiting for 49.3” the next day.
“It’s still a problem that we learn from the press that the debates stop tomorrow”, launched the Insoumis Eric Coquerel, while the Communist deputy Nicolas Sansu asked for additional sessions.
– Another 2,000 amendments –
There are still nearly 2,000 amendments to be examined, and certain sensitive subjects, such as the taxation of “superprofits”, will not have been discussed in the hemicycle if the judgment of the debates is confirmed on Wednesday.
The oppositions point to a contradiction with the desire for “dialogue” displayed by the executive, which for its part refutes any “passage in force”, considering itself constrained by the only relative majority which it has in the hemicycle.
Article 49.3 of the Constitution allows him to pass a text without a vote, unless a motion of censure is adopted.
The deputies of the Nupes (LFI, PS, EELV, PCF) and of the RN are in the starting blocks to draw theirs as soon as the procedure is activated. But they are unlikely to bring down the government, the RN having ruled out “a priori” to vote for a text from the Nupes, and vice versa.
The first reading of the revenue part of the draft budget will be completed, but what amendments will the government include in the text submitted to 49.3? Knowing that he can retain or dismiss as he pleases those who have been voted on or rejected, and even those who have not yet been examined.
Facing the Renaissance deputies, Elisabeth Borne stressed on Tuesday that there had been “interesting proposals which will be taken into account in the final text”.
The Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire took care not to raise too many hopes: “it will be without me” if the final text were to derail public finances, he launched Monday in a meeting at Matignon according to a participant.
– “No” for super dividends –
According to a majority executive, the executive has given the green light to around a hundred amendments, mostly from the majority and some from the opposition, at a cost of between 700 and 800 million euros.
These include strengthening the childcare tax credit, reducing taxes for smaller businesses and removing a tax advantage enjoyed by private jets.
But there is no question of including the MoDem amendment on the taxation of “superdividends”, yet adopted with the support of the left, the RN and even around twenty Renaissance deputies.
Nor that of the PS, adopted in session, for the establishment of a tax credit for the remainder payable by all residents in nursing homes, deemed too expensive. It is also no to the restoration of the “exit tax”, voted by a coalition of oppositions.
According to a member of the Nupes, the government “had made the bet of totally hysterical oppositions in session, which would have justified the triggering of 49.3 from the start, but that bet, they lost it”.
A leader of the majority confides for his part that “if there had not been the fuel crisis”, he would have “continued to proclaim that it was necessary to activate the 49.3 earlier”, undoubtedly the first of a long series, until the final adoption of the budget in mid-December.
The exchanges must resume Wednesday at 3:00 p.m. with a debate around the “deduction on receipts for the benefit of the EU”. The intervention of the head of government, who must be in the Senate at the start of the afternoon, could only take place afterwards.
