Will Michel Barnier make it through the winter? Anticipating the lack of a majority to vote his social security budget, on Monday, December 2, the prime minister used Article 49.3 of the Constitution to try to force the text through without a vote.
In response, the four left-wing groups of the Nouveau Front Populaire coalition and the far-right Rassemblement National have both filed motions of no confidence. The far-right party has also said it would vote in favor of the left's text, which is due to be debated on Wednesday. Together, their votes would lead to the fall of the Barnier government, suspending the adoption procedure for all the budgetary texts currently being examined (PLF, PLFSS, PLFFG).
However, without a budget voted and enacted by December 31, 2024, public administrations would be unable to pay civil servants, government suppliers or bills. Is this shutdown scenario, unprecedented in modern French political history, inevitable?
If the government is toppled, the budgetary texts currently being examined will be definitively rejected, legal experts say. "As the Barnier government will have fallen, it will only be able to handle day-to-day affairs," explained Aurélien Baudu, professor of public law at the University of Lille, and his colleague at Paris Cité University, Xavier Cabannes.
What happens to the 2025 budget bill?
In the event of a successful vote of no-confidence, President Emmanuel Macron must appoint a new prime minister. But given the political circumstances, and the difficulty with which Barnier's appointment came about, the possibility of having a new head of government soon remains uncertain.
To avoid a shutdown, an even more unlikely scenario remains: the activation of Article 47 of the Constitution. This allows the government to enact its budget bill without a vote, if Parliament has not voted on it within 70 days. But the possibility that a government subject to a no-confidence vote could use this article divides law experts. "The overthrown government would not be able to use an Article 47 ordinance because when a government falls, all the bills it brought also fall," explained Cabannes. "We don't have much hindsight, and even fewer precedents, but there is a way legally," said constitutionalist Benjamin Morel. "The political consequences would however be very serious."