the “special law” adopted unanimously by the Assembly, before a vote in the Senate in the evening

A sort of legislative “crutch”, this text temporarily renews the 2025 budget and allows the State to continue to raise taxes. A way to avoid the paralysis of institutions, pending the adoption of the finance bill.

The National Assembly unanimously adopted, Tuesday, December 23, the draft “special law” allowing the State to continue to provisionally finance. Tabled by the government after the failure of the joint committee of deputies and senators on the 2026 draft budget, the text must still receive the approval of the Senate in the evening with a view to final adoption, before the resumption of debates in January. The special law, which temporarily renews the 2025 budget, makes it possible to raise taxes and pay civil servants. But it does not include new spending, including on defense, which has been made a priority in the face of the Russian threat.

The privileged dialogue initiated by the tenant of Matignon with the Socialist Party certainly enabled the adoption of the Social Security budget for 2026, at the cost of concessions on its financing and on pensions. But the deep differences between the Assembly and the Senate, hostile to any additional levies, prevented the approval of the second budgetary text, that on state financing. “A slight time difference between the Assembly and the Senate (…) which we will still have to correct in the times to come”declared Sébastien Lecornu, questioned in the lower house by the president of the PS group Boris Vallaud.

Parliamentarians will meet at the start of the year for new games on this text, while France is faced with increasing debt and the discussions have not made it possible to outline a path for reducing deficits. The government would like a new reading of the budget in committee at the Assembly on January 5 or 6, but according to the president of the Finance Commission Eric Coquerel (LFI), it will rather be on the 7th or 8th before the debate in the hemicycle from the 12th. During a speech Tuesday evening in Matignon, the Prime Minister called for compromise and said he was convinced that the adoption of the finance bill “is possible if political calculations are put aside.”