Failing to win in Parliament on the defense of purchasing power, the left wants to fight the government before the Constitutional Council. Deputies of the New People’s Ecological and Social Union (Nupes) filed appeals on Friday, August 5, against the two texts of the legislative package adopted by the National Assembly and the Senate, denouncing measures contrary to “several principles” and “values” constitutional. The institution has one month to decide.
The first of these appeals, on the initiative of the entire Nupes, concerns the amending finance bill, approved on Thursday, and against which it voted. Communists, socialists, ecologists and “rebellious” attack, in a press release, the “monetization of work time recovery days”considering that the amendment concerned constitutes a “budget rider”. The expression designates a measure that does not relate directly to public finances but is nevertheless included in a finance bill. As such, according to the applicants, it should fall under “the censorship of the Constitutional Council”.
Is also pointed the “removal of the audiovisual license fee” since the proposed compensatory financing mechanism, the allocation of part of the VAT, “does not, according to them, ensure the security of the funding of establishments” audiovisuals. MEPs generally denounce a law which “disregards the principle of budgetary sincerity due to the chronic and manifest undervaluation of revenue forecasts”.
“common heritage”
On the other hand, only the groups La France insoumise and Europe Ecologie-Les Verts filed a second appeal, against the bill on emergency measures for the protection of purchasing power, adopted on Wednesday. In a statement sent to Agence France-Presse, they believe that “several provisions of this bill promoting the development of fossil fuels seriously and manifestly undermine the objective, which has constitutional value, of protecting the environment, the common heritage of human beings”.
The text in question mentions among others the possibility of reactivating coal-fired power plants in the event of a threat to the security of electricity supply, and the commissioning of an LNG terminal in Le Havre. To denounce these measures, the petitioners base themselves on the Charter of the environment adopted in 2004, integrated since 2005 in the preamble of the Constitution. During the examination of the bill, communists, ecologists and “rebellious” had voted against, but the socialists had abstained.