Let's go for a first warm-up round: the deputies take up the state budget for 2027 in committee this Wednesday, October 7, in a heavy atmosphere a few months before the presidential election, between social movements and the fear of a financial crisis. From 9 a.m., members of the Finance Committee will launch debates lasting at least three days on the “revenue” part of the draft state budget. A simple dress rehearsal, because the deputies will leave whatever happens from the initial copy in the hemicycle on October 13.
With some 1,700 amendments - some will be deemed inadmissible - the debates promise to be very intense on the government copy, which aims to reduce the public deficit to 5% of GDP in 2027. Brandishing the specter of a financial crisis with the rise in the cost of the debt, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu invoked the "reality" which is "catching up with us", to defend some 45 billion new savings efforts.
And, if part of it is based on budget cuts, certain “revenue” measures will be debated this week. Starting with one of the first articles, lowering the ceiling of the reduction favorable to retirees by 10% to 3,000 euros. LFI and RN deputies, but also from the government camp, want to come back to this. Companies are also being asked, even if the corporate surtax on large companies will be lowered to 5 billion euros (compared to 7.3 currently). And other taxes, which must be created or increased, are causing outcry among motorway concession companies or the airline sector.
The government copy, like a “provocation”
Unsurprisingly, the copy was received just as coldly by the oppositions in the Assembly. Éric Coquerel, LFI president of the Finance Committee, accused this draft budget of being “disconnected from the realities” of the country. Charles de Courson, from the Liot group of independent deputies, deplored a “massive increase in levies”, quantifying “new taxes at 17 to 18 billion”. As for the PS, which had agreed not to censor the executive last year, it seems very badly on track to do so again, describing the government copy as “provocation”.
In the absence of a majority, the government may have to go through article 49 paragraph 3 of the Constitution, but only if it results in a compromise that the PS or the RN chooses not to censor. All in a particularly delicate context, the budgetary debates being impacted by worrying economic prospects, high school mobilization, and a presidential campaign not conducive to political compromise.
70 days of debate, where everything will be “watched”
LFI deputies will notably propose a freeze on rents for social housing, or a tax increased to 15% for digital giants (compared to 3% currently). The PS will also propose reducing certain tax loopholes, such as that on tonnage, which benefits the giant CMA-CGM. And the left will put its divisions on hold to defend the floor tax on assets, still based on the work of economist Gabriel Zucman. On the RN side, if Marine Le Pen criticizes a “very bad” budget, the candidate does not seem to want to go through the censorship box in her race for the Élysée.
Without necessarily reassuring Macronists still burned by Michel Barnier's censorship in 2024, the boss of the far-right group approved, for example, the waiting period proposed by the government for the payment of certain allowances to foreigners. She also estimated on Tuesday that she had been partly “heard” on a budget that could in any case be reversed quickly after the presidential election. His group will defend in committee certain markers such as a full tax share from the second child, or a tax on employers using a foreign worker (non-EU) as long as France “has not reached full employment”.
If it considers passage through 49.3 impossible or too costly in concessions, the government could also choose the path of budgetary ordinances, never used, but allowing the budget to be passed without any vote. But this will require 70 days of debate. A delay which worries Philippe Juvin (LR), general rapporteur, who fears the impact of budgetary debates “on the markets”. Because “everything is looked at”.
