French Prime Minister François Bayrou will on Monday, February 3, try to force through his government's budget without a vote using a controversial constitutional mechanism, which will likely lead to a no-confidence motion from the left. The Assemblée Nationale is on Monday afternoon scheduled to examine the budget bill drawn up by a joint committee of 14 lawmakers from the two parliamentary chambers.
With all opposition MPs in the committee having voted against the text and the government lacking a parliamentary majority, Bayrou has decided to cut the debate short. He told the Sunday newspaper La Tribune Dimanche he would trigger Article 49.3 of the Constitution to force through the budget without a vote. It is something he had previously vowed not to do unless there was a "total deadlock on the budget." Now the budget has to be passed without delay, he said. "A country like ours cannot remain without a budget," he told La Tribune Dimanche.
The move is high-risk for both Bayrou and President Emmanuel Macron, now on his sixth prime minister since taking office in 2017. Bayrou's predecessor, Michel Barnier, was forced from office in a no-confidence vote in December after invoking the same article of the Constitution to force through the social security budget.
The radical left party La France Insoumise (LFI) has made it clear that it would seek a no-confidence motion to bring down Bayrou's government. That could now come as early as Wednesday, with the Communists and Greens likely to back it. To succeed however, it would need backing from the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party and the Socialists, and it is not yet clear where they stand.
Boris Vallaud, president of the Socialists' parliamentary group, told Ouest France newspaper that the party had not yet reached a position on the question. They were still looking for concessions on the proposed budget, he added. Vallaud's Socialists broke off talks with Bayrou's administration last week after he referred to an immigrant "submersion" of France, borrowing from terminology previously used by the far right.
But the party's former prime minister, Lionel Jospin, argued this weekend that the Socialists should not back a no-confidence motion. Speaking at a debate on Saturday, he said it would leave the country without a budget and without a government.
The RN has said it will make its position clear at the beginning of the week. One prominent RN lawmaker, Jean-Philippe Tanguy, told broadcaster France 3 that the budget being proposed was "worse than the absence of a budget". He personally backed a motion of no-confidence, he said. But it will be for party leaders Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella to decide, he added.