On the one hand, the government, deprived of an absolute majority, is trying to complete the first reading of the rectified draft budget for 2022, which was originally due to end last Friday evening, so that the Senate can consider it this week.
On the other hand, the oppositions, especially on the left, are defending their proposals step by step and are trying to wrest everything they can, in support of galloping inflation.
Monday evening again, 230 million euros for homes heating with fuel oil were approved, by concordant votes from LR, RN and the left. The government favored aid of 50 million euros.
The Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, called loud and clear for budgetary moderation, while 44 billion euros in credits are already open: “Let’s keep the public accounts!”
“We are witnessing a real distortion of the democratic debate”, with “endless” debates and “pure political politics”, he denounced then, while the discussions dragged on on access to water. or firefighters.
The insubordinate France answered him sharply on Tuesday. “There is a re-parliamentarization of political life”, welcomed Alexis Corbière on LCI.
The deputy warned against “Macronian propaganda”, with an “anti-parliamentary speech which consists in saying: It is an assembly of chatterers, they are wasting the government’s time”.
“The era of a Parliament chamber for recording the wishes of the President of the Republic is over,” added his colleague Adrien Quatennens on France Inter.
Still, in the majority as in the opposition, weariness pierces after these days and nights almost nonstop for more than a week. “We are women and men with physical limits”, slips an elected official.
– “Great anything” –
“The atmosphere of the past nights was nonsense,” denounces Erwan Balanant (MoDem), pointing out that the vote on fuel oil, for example, “was applauded as if France had scored a goal in the final. of the World Cup”.
“The greens, the socialists and the big guns of the ecological bifurcation also voted for this amendment” which “finances fossil fuels”, he noted.
To avoid a new accident of voting for the majority, the hearings of ministers scheduled for Tuesday at the end of the afternoon in committee were canceled in extremis, so that all the elected officials could be present in the hemicycle.
The exchanges are likely to be fed, on the financing by the State of the renationalisation to 100% of EDF or on the continuation of the shield on the price of gas.
On Saturday, the government entered into a compromise with the Republicans for the continuation of the fuel discount: the measure, to be specified by decree, will increase from 18 to 30 euro cents in September and October, then to 10 cents in November and December .
As in the last few days already, the deputies have the will to go to the end of the night and solemnly adopt the whole of the rectified draft budget, after the vote on Friday in the early morning of the “emergency” bill on the purchasing power.
The LRs will vote mostly in favor, said their president Olivier Marleix, satisfied with the “positive showdown with the government” which has made it possible to take measures on fuel, the purchase of RTTs by companies, and even the tax exemption of overtime.
The left should vote against. “We cannot support this package (on) purchasing power co-constructed with the right” and of which “equality and social justice are the major absentees”, according to a spokesperson for PS deputies, Arthur Delaporte .
On the RN side, “the vote for is extremely unlikely”, indicated Jean-Philippe Tanguy, notably regretting the rejection of VAT cuts.
This vote will mark the end of the first round at the Palais-Bourbon. The ministers are asked to “participate in the work” until the end of the parliamentary session scheduled for this stage on August 7, recommended Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.
