The government “has no choice” and had to have the revenue part of the budget adopted by a 49.3, said Budget Minister Thomas Cazenave on Wednesday, while noting the enrichment of the text by more than 300 amendments, in particular the ‘opposition.
The announcement by Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne of the use of her 13th 49.3 on Wednesday “is not a surprise”, but “we have no choice”, said Mr. Cazenave during a press briefing.
“The oppositions had announced that they would not vote for the budget, this was confirmed after 40 hours of work in the Committee (of Finance, Editor’s note) and the examination of 3,000 amendments”, “a record”, according to the minister.
“We have no choice, because there is no alternative budget with oppositions that are on irreconcilable demands, with on one side those who denounce an unprecedented austerity cure and others who demand deep cuts in our budget,” he said.
“And yet, it is our responsibility to provide the country with a budget before the end of the year”, so 49.3 “is the only possible solution”.
However, according to Mr. Cazenave, there was “dialogue and parliamentary time”. He recalled the various meetings of the Bercy Dialogues, which he held at the ministry in the weeks preceding the presentation of the 2024 draft budget with representatives of the parties of the National Assembly or the Senate.
The final text “is different” from the initial project, underlined Mr. Cazenave, since “we retained more than 300 amendments” against 120 last year, and amendments “naturally from the majority but also from the oppositions”.
“More than 110 amendments come from the Renaissance group,” he detailed, “around thirty from the Democratic group, the same for the Horizons group, 17 from the LR, 12 from the Socialists, 8 from the LIOT, 3 from the Ecologists and 3 from the group GDR”, on “subjects on which they wanted to move forward”.
He welcomed the fact that “the compatible amendments have found concrete expression”.
Among these accepted amendments is the reduction from 71% to 50% of the reduction on tourist residences, an expansion of the Zero Interest Loan (PTZ), an acceleration of the energy renovation of housing, a generalization of the experience of “tax advisors”, paid for information provided to the tax administration.
Mr. Cazenave observed on France Info that this last proposal was supported by the socialist Christine Pirès-Beaune.
An amendment from PCF national secretary Fabien Roussel to exempt associations and foundations from housing tax was also accepted, as was an amendment from LR aimed at continuing the exemption from fuel compensation paid by employers. The government also accepted the amendments in favor of overseas territories from the LIOT group.
Welcoming the fact that these amendments do not unbalance public finances, Mr. Cazenave hoped for “real savings” for the years to come.
The 16 billion savings in 2024 will essentially be based on the end of tariff shields.
Asked about France’s more than 3,000 billion euros of public debt, the minister noted that “this debt is bought by investors because we have good economic growth.”
“We did well to protect the French and now that the crises are behind us, we must return to a normal mode of management of our public finances, which is why I defend the gradual reduction of the public deficit which will be reduced to less by 3% in 2027,” he concluded.