The National Assembly on Monday rejected by 50 votes the motion of censure of the left-wing coalition Nupes on the draft budget 2023, to which the RN gave its support. The motion garnered 239 votes out of the 289 needed. A little later, it was the motion tabled by the RN which was rejected by the lower house of Parliament. The text of Marine Le Pen’s group received 90 votes, far from the absolute majority of 289 deputies. As a result, the revenue side of the 2023 budget is adopted at first reading.
In the hemicycle, the Prime Minister took turns criticizing the oppositions. She criticized the left-wing coalition (LFI, PS, EELV, PCF) for “excesses” and “untruths”, judging that “insubordination won the game”, in an “alternative country where Jean-Luc Mélenchon would be reached the second round of the presidential election.
The head of government then pointed to the “simplism and excess” of the National Rally, whose “ideological fundamentals have not changed for fifty years”. “You are aiming for disorder and discord at the cost of an unnatural alliance with Nupes”, launched Elisabeth Borne.
An atmosphere of “end of reign”
Because Marine Le Pen had just announced that her group would “also vote for the motion” presented by Nupes, in the face of the “arrogance” of the executive. At “RN, we are not afraid of threats of dissolution”, launched the president of the far-right group in an allusion to a threat brandished by Emmanuel Macron.
RN like Nupes described an atmosphere of “end of reign” with the use of 49.3, which allows part of the State and Social Security budgets to be passed without a vote. Speaker of the left-wing coalition, the president of the environmental group Cyrielle Chatelain accused the executive of “muzzling” the Assembly. She criticized the Prime Minister for her climate “inaction”: “Your planning is a masquerade”.
The Insoumise Mathilde Panot for her part pinned the “macronarchy” and “authoritarianism” of Emmanuel Macron. The opposition criticizes the government for “sweeping” amendments voted by the Assembly, in particular the increase in the taxation of “superdividends”, proposed by the MoDem, a member of the majority. The macronists on the contrary return the responsibility for the “blocking” to them. And the leader of the Renaissance deputies, Aurore Bergé attacked the “ad hoc” alliance of the “extreme” for “the sole purpose of bringing down the government”.
A “heavy decision”
These motions respond to Article 49.3 of the Constitution, activated twice on Wednesday and Thursday by the Prime Minister to pass without a vote the revenue parts of the social security finance and financing bill. In the evening, the deputies will examine another Nupes motion presented by the socialist Jérôme Guedj from 9:30 p.m., on the financing of Social Security. Since the beginning of the Fifth Republic, this is the first time that three motions of censure have been examined on the same day.
As for the first two, it has a priori no chance of winning the absolute majority of 289 votes necessary to bring down the government, the right having warned that, there again, it did not intend to vote for it “not add disorder to disorder”.
The 49.3 is a “heavy decision” but which “was necessary”, underlined Elisabeth Borne. “We could not leave France without a budget and the French without protection”. A rejection of the motions of censure would allow the adoption of the revenue parts of the finance bill (PLF) and that of the Secu for 2023. And to continue the examination of these two texts.
The first 49.3 in a long series?
In the absence of an absolute majority for the Macronists in the Assembly, these two 49.3 are probably the first of a long series during this budgetary autumn. In the version of the budget submitted to 49.3 on Monday at first reading, the executive retained around a hundred amendments voted on during the debate, but neither from the RN nor from LFI, and not the most sensitive.
But “I do not consider that we are at the end of the road”, said Elisabeth Borne, who asked the government to work on the “employee dividend”, for the “sharing of value”. In this 2023 budget, the government claims a balance between control of public finances and the “protection” of the French, thanks to a “tariff shield” of 45 billion euros to limit the increase in regulated tariffs to 15%. electricity and gas.