Big workout? Before resuming debate on budget checks in the National Assembly’s half-cycle this week, deputies debated the final financial management bill for 2025. This text, which stipulated budget adjustments to be made at the end of the year, was rejected: 145 deputies voted against, and only 107 voted in favor.
The decision will still be forwarded to the Senate, before returning to the National Assembly in the coming days.
“The estimated public deficit is at -5.4%, unchanged compared to the initial financial law (LFI) for 2025 and the revised financial law 2025 (PLF) for 2026,” the government said in an explanatory note to the bill. “Execution of controlled spending in the APBN with estimated implementation in line with the initial budget for 2025,” we can also read.
In addition, the expiration of the management bill for 2025 provides for the allocation of three billion euros to finance certain expenses related to the payment of aid and certain social benefits.
What will be the outcome of the finance bill?
The 2025 end-of-year management bill was rejected in the Finance Committee in early November. And last year, in November 2024, lawmakers rejected the 2024 bill in its first discussion.
Does this vote portend the future of the “revenue” section of the finance bill, which could come to a vote later this week? “We could be in a situation where the National Assembly unanimously rejects the revenue part of the finance bill,” analyzed the president of the Democratic and Republican Left group, communist Stéphane Peu, in the morning.
Because even deputies from the general base – from Renaissance to LR – whose political groups remained represented in the executive branch, had to vote against the revenue aspect of the text.
“The danger weighing on the French economy is the absence of a budget,” Sébastien Lecornu warned on Monday to his bosses, and insisted that the government “affirm its beliefs even more strongly”, saying for example that it was a supporter of the Dutreil pact, which facilitated the transfer of the family business.
If the budget cannot be approved, the head of government can pass it through regulations, or he can pass a special law, allowing the 2025 allocation to be renewed but requiring Parliament to take up the budget again for the full year in 2026.
