A quinquennium hunts the other. In the fall of 2017, the first budget of the Macron mandate was intended to be the tool of the transformative will on which the candidate En marche! had been elected: reform of capital taxation with the abolition of wealth tax and the introduction of the “flat tax”, beginning of the reduction in housing tax, significant increase in ecological taxation. In a context of economic upturn, the new executive also promised a ” serious “ renewed budget… and the return to balanced public accounts in 2022.
Five years later, the crises – “yellow vests”, Covid, war in Ukraine, drought… – have upset the planned trajectory and Macron the reformer, although re-elected, is criticized for the lack of breath of his second term. Above all, the legislative elections in June caused the presidential party to lose an absolute majority, making the implementation of the government’s economic policy much more dangerous. It is therefore in an unprecedented context for the Head of State that the finance bill (PLF) 2023 was to be presented, Monday, September 26 in the Council of Ministers – at the same time as a new finance programming law policies, setting a budget trajectory over five years.
“This budget is going to be very complex for the government, because it is full of contradictions, with both a cap – supply policy and deficit reductions – and an economic situation that is undermining revenues and requiring expenditures to deal with the energy crisis, sums up Eric Coquerel (La France insoumise), the chairman of the finance committee at the National Assembly.
A perilous “at the same time”, which should not facilitate the task of the executive. “It is customary for the oppositions not to vote on the budget”recalls Véronique Louwagie, MP for Orne and leader Republicans on the Finance Committee. The government, which for a moment thought it could count on abstention to have its text adopted, has seemed in recent days to resolve to pass it without a vote, when it judges the discussions at an impasse. “There is still a narrow way to pass the text without 49.3”however, estimated Monday morning, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire. “The oppositions themselves told us that 49.3 was likely”had indicated the Minister Delegate for Public Accounts, Gabriel Attal, on Sunday, in an interview with the Sunday newspaper. A method often likened to a forced passage, which he has tried to mitigate by convening in recent days “Bercy dialogues” in order to present to parliamentarians of all stripes the main lines of the budget. This outstretched hand will also make it possible, if necessary, to make the opposition bear the responsibility for a failure of the debates.
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