Elisabeth Borne on Wednesday engaged her responsibility before the National Assembly for the fourth time in 15 days, to conclude a first chapter of budgetary debates marred by setbacks for the presidential camp. “Since the conditions for a constructive dialogue are no longer met (…), we must react”, justified Élisabeth Borne in the hemicycle, deserted before she took the floor by the LFI deputies while those of the presidential camp greeted him standing.
This new recourse to Article 49.3 of the Constitution, whose shadow has been hovering over the deputies for several days, puts an end to the debates on the “expenditure” part of the draft state budget for 2023, far from having arrived. at their end.
The examination of the budget appropriations of the communities promised to be explosive
Among the budgetary appropriations which remained to be examined figured in particular those of the local authorities. They promised an explosive debate in the hemicycle, and the government, deprived of an absolute majority, risked exposing itself to new disappointments during the votes. With this new 49.3, the finance bill (PLF) for 2023 will be considered adopted without a vote at first reading by the Assembly, unless a motion of censure is adopted in the coming days, a highly unlikely hypothesis. The text will then pass to the Senate.
The first part of the PLF and the Social Security draft budget have already been adopted in the Assembly with the same decried method. And the motions of censure drawn to respond to it all failed, even those voted jointly by the RN and the Nupes (LFI, PS, EELV, PCF), for lack of support from the LR deputies.
A new motion of censure tabled by LFI
Shortly after, the LFI deputies tabled a new motion of censure against the government. “Such a repetition (of 49.3) illustrates the contempt of power for parliamentary work, an inability to convince and an increasingly authoritarian use of the mechanisms of the Fifth Republic”, denounce the deputies in this motion of censure. For them, this 49.3 activated Wednesday afternoon “adds to the practice of generalized lying to discredit the opposition of parliamentarians in the face of these repeated acts of force”.
“The government is trying here to hide the generalized austerity for housing, national solidarity, public services, school or equality between women and men”, further criticized the LFI deputies.
Will the RN support LFI’s motion?
The scenario should repeat itself a fourth time, surrounded by the same questions: will the motion that LFI immediately announced that it wants to table once again have the support of the RN? The presidential camp had criticized a “collusion” with the far right. The RN group will decide on Thursday whether it also files one. “No ‘change of method’, always the same democratic denial”, has already tweeted Marine Le Pen.
Elisabeth Borne triggers yet another 49.3 by attacking in her speech the amendments voted by the national representation. No “change of method”, always the same democratic denial.
– Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) November 2, 2022
Within Nupes, divided on the strategy to adopt, will support for this new motion tabled only by LFI erode further? Monday, 22 votes of the left allies had failed during the vote on the motion of the Insoumis on the Social Security budget, including those of the boss of the PCF Fabien Roussel and the socialist Valérie Rabault.
An “aberration”, according to former LFI presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, judging that “under the pretext of ‘refusing RN voices’, they actually end up, without daring to say it, by supporting the Macron government by refusing its fall”. This new 49.3 also puts back on the table the sensitive question of the amendments that the government will retain or discard in the text it wants to pass, among those adopted by the National Assembly against its opinion – it has carte blanche in the matter.
The government won’t erase everything
The Prime Minister assured that the government would not erase everything with a stroke of the pen, citing among the amendments which would be retained some “of those adopted during the examination of the appropriations of the overseas mission”. She also cited “7 billion additional euros for the protection of companies and communities in the face of rising energy prices” or even “the revaluation of wages” of those accompanying students with disabilities (AESH) .
But no trace of the amendments of the ecologists and the PS, who had added a total of nearly 12 billion euros to the thermal renovation of housing, with the support of the RN. Dressed in orange vests and surrounded by a large police force, environmental activists blocked traffic on Wednesday in front of the Assembly to ask the executive to keep these measures.
“You have upset the balance of the text”
“With 15 billion euros in new spending, taken from essential programs, you have profoundly upset the consistency and balance of the text”, said Élisabeth Borne on Wednesday, pointing to an RN and a Nupes “allies once again” around these costly measures, which in her view justify her new use of 49.3.
These amendments would in particular have the consequence of “abolishing”, by depriving it of financing, the “tariff shield”, this flagship measure of the first draft of the State budget of the new five-year period, which should limit the increases in regulated prices to 15% gas and electricity. This budget, which the right finds too expensive and the left not ambitious enough, also provides for an increase in teachers’ salaries or the creation of more than 10,000 civil servant positions.