Latest: The vote will not happen today. The Assembly’s Friday sitting closed at midnight with 2,828 amendments to the revenue section still unexamined, making the solemn vote scheduled for Tuesday October 20 impossible, and the postponement is official, InvestirMag reported on Monday. Deputies turn first to the Social Security financing bill, whose examination begins this week under a 20 day constitutional deadline that expires October 27, and resume the state budget’s revenue debate afterwards. The Defiant reported on Tuesday that the revenue vote is now scheduled for November 3. Every day of delay shortens what is left for the spending section, because both parts of the finance bill are judged together when the 40 day first reading window closes on November 17.
France’s National Assembly was to vote today on the revenue section, Part I, of the government’s 2027 budget. The Finance Committee rejected the revenue section by 31 votes to 3 on October 9, which meant the chamber debated the government’s original text rather than an amended committee version. Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu’s government holds no majority in the Assembly, so the outcome depends on opposition parties that have attacked the package from opposite directions.
The budget is a deficit reduction effort described at 54 billion euros in savings, aimed at bringing the deficit of the eurozone’s second largest economy down toward 5 percent of GDP. Budget Minister David Amiel has warned that amendments already approved in debate would worsen the deficit by 10 billion euros, a measure of how far the chamber has moved the text from the government’s arithmetic. The constitution gives lawmakers 70 days to debate and amend the bill across both houses before a final vote, and the full bill vote is scheduled for November 17.
The vote lands in a week of street pressure. Protests over living costs and public services turned violent in several cities over the weekend, and President Emmanuel Macron on Monday refused the resignation of Interior Minister Laurent Nunez over the handling of that unrest, a separate story in today’s brief. Successive French minority governments have used Article 49.3 of the constitution to force budgets through without a vote, at the price of no confidence motions. Whether Lecornu needs that tool, and what concessions survival would cost, is what today’s revenue vote will start to answer.