The Senate, with a right-wing majority, adopted, on the evening of Friday July 29, at first reading and after having amended it, the “emergency” bill in support of purchasing power, the first part of the package of measures to cope with inflation, which is above 6%.
The text was adopted by a show of hands, thanks to the votes of the groups Les Républicains (LR), Centrist Union and Rally of Democrats, Progressives and Independents (RDPI) – with a majority of members of En Marche! –, after two days of generally serene debates, contrasting with the chaotic discussion that prevailed in the National Assembly.
From Monday, the senators will tackle the amending budget for 2022, the hypothesis of a tax on “superprofits”, carried in particular by the centrists, risking to strain the debates. On the same day, deputies and senators will meet in a joint committee to try to agree on a common version of the bill on purchasing power – the government is counting on a final adoption of the two texts no later than August 7 .
Continuation of the “Macron bonus” until December 2023
“Things are not written in advance”warned Philippe Mouiller (LR), stressing that the Senate would have “red lines”. The first text is calibrated at 20.7 billion by Bruno Le Maire, the second opens 44 billion euros in credits, including 9.7 to finance the 100% renationalization of EDF.
“Inflation remains our number one concern, but we anticipate a decline” in 2023, declared the Minister of the Economy at the end of the Council of Ministers, while INSEE published on Friday a first estimate for July of the consumer price index (+ 6.1% on a year later + 5.8% in June).
The Senate has given, with the support of the government, a boost to traders. It adopted an amendment by former minister Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne (RDPI) to cap the increase in commercial rents for SMEs at 3.5% for one year. The senators had previously approved the “rent shield” for individuals, which also provides for a cap on the increase at 3.5% from July 2022 to June 2023.
The Senate voted to continue until December 31, 2023 the “Macron bonus”, with a ceiling raised to 3,000 euros or 6,000 euros in the event of a profit-sharing agreement. However, it reserved only companies with fewer than fifty employees the perpetuation, from 2024, of a bonus exempt from social security contributions.
The deconjugalization of the allowance for disabled adults recorded
Despite a lively debate on the revaluation of the RSA, the senators also recorded a 4% increase in retirement pensions and several allowances (family, social minima) with retroactive effect from 1er July 2022, as well as the deconjugalization of the allowance for disabled adults.
To “value the work”, the senators have created a reduction in employers’ contributions on overtime, provided for the possibility of an early release of employee savings and relaxed the rules for the use of meal vouchers.
On the energy side, several senators stressed the need to better ” to anticipate “. “Let us be attentive to our decisions, the energy transition is no longer understood by our fellow citizens”warned René-Paul Savary (LR), when Emmanuel Macron made the “gentle eyes to the prince” to inherit Saudi, Mohammed Ben Salman, for “import oil”.
The Minister for Energy Transition, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, mentioned for the “return” October Parliamentary Bill “accelerating the energy transition”discussed for several weeks to simplify the development of renewable energies, wind and solar. “A priori, the Senate would be the first” to examine it, she slipped. By an amendment of the socialist Franck Montaugé, the senators limited to two years instead of five the duration of the exceptional devices for the supply of France in gas, against the will of the government.
Greens and Communists vote against, Socialists abstain
They also voted for an amendment by the president of the Les Républicains group, Bruno Retailleau, asking the government for a report “aiming to establish”through a smart box, a voluntary and remunerated device for reducing electricity consumption for individuals.
The environmental group and the communist, republican, citizen and environmentalist group (CRCE), with a communist majority, voted against the “emergency” text, which according to Fabien Gay (CRCE) can “to be summed up by the word ‘avoidance'”think “so that the salary increase does not come on the table”.
The Socialists abstained “to tell the French ‘you can count on us to defend you'”said their leader, Patrick Kanner. “We must vote responsibly”pleaded the centrist Jean-Pierre Moga, for whom “supporting our most modest fellow citizens is as much a necessity as an imperative”.