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If the Prime Minister has officially renounced using this article of the Constitution to offer himself clemency from the socialists, Sébastien Lecornu is now invited by certain elected officials not to deprive himself of it to get the budget out of the impasse.
The big return of the 49.3? This article of the Constitution, which allows the government to adopt a text without a vote from the National Assembly, had been shelved by Sébastien Lecornu as part of the examination of budgetary texts. No, with him in Matignon, there would be no recourse to this constitutional weapon to force the passage of the finance bill (PLF) or the Social Security financing bill (PLFSS).
However, a few weeks later, the use of article 49.3 is no longer so taboo. Within the “common base” of the center and the right, very divided on these texts, certain voices are being heard to rehabilitate this tool. “The people I meet, frankly, (…) they don’t care about the method, what they want is for us to have a budget”said former Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne on franceinfo and France Inter.
“There are different ways to achieve this and that is part of the discussions that the Prime Minister must have with the different groups represented in the National Assembly.”
Elisabeth Borne, deputy for Calvadoson franceinfo
“I say to the Prime Minister: ‘You have the possibility and the right to use 49.3 and in the situation we are in, you have the duty. Use it!'” also launched Philippe Juvin, LR budget rapporteur, on Radio J.
At the PS, the idea is also gaining ground, to the point of no longer being brushed aside publicly. Wednesday, on BFMTVFrançois Hollande considered “this formula” : “If we had to request this procedure, it is because all the others would not have worked. We must never deprive ourselves of a constitutional provision”warned the ex-president. “It is for the protection of purchasing power and public services that I am fighting, not against an article of the Constitution”swept aside the boss of PS deputies, Boris Vallaud, in The Parisian. If MP Arthur Delaporte considers that this is not “not the preferred hypothesis”according to him, “the way of doing things is incidental”evacuates Senator Rachid Temal.
“Only the devices and the press focus on 49.3.”
Rachid Temal, PS senatorat franceinfo
So many positions which contrast sharply with the demands of many socialists during the summer. At the beginning of September, Olivier Faure asked Sébastien Lecornu to “give up 49.3”, “because it would demonstrate that the method is changing” compared to previous governments. Three weeks later, the Prime Minister formally granted this request from the socialist leader, to gain clemency from the PS.
But since then, the State budget and that of Social Security have been fiercely debated and turned upside down compared to the government’s initial copy. And no one really seems to support the PLF and the PLFSS as a whole anymore. This is evidenced by the only vote in favor, compared to 404 votes against, on the first part of the finance bill, devoted to state revenue, on the night of Friday November 21 to Saturday November 22. Currently being debated in the Senate, the text should be largely modified.
On the PLFSS, which concerns in particular the future of pension reform, the political situation is not any easier. After a first reading in the Assembly and the Senate, the text returned to committee on Saturday November 29. It was rejected, before being debated again in a public session in the hemicycle, on Tuesday, December 2. In this context, 49.3 is already missing from many groups. “There is no other choice to have the text adopted”admits a Republican deputy, who is mainly waiting to see “what the government will put in the text”. Indeed, with 49.3, the latter is free to integrate into the adopted text the amendments it wishes, regardless of the group which proposed them.
The government has another tool to pass a budget without a majority: ordinances, which it can trigger as soon as the deadlines for examining the budget expire, as provided for in another article of the Constitution, 47.1. But this mechanism, which has never been used for a budget, is seen as even more unparliamentary than the famous 49.3. “We did not give up on 49.3 and then use the ordinances, that would be nonsense”says a right-wing senator.
49.3 would have at least some tactical advantages: it allows the government to slip into the budgetary copy the concessions made to the PS, such as the suspension of the pension reform. This scenario would have another advantage for the socialists: it would spare them from having to decide directly on the budgetary texts. De facto, 49.3 almost automatically triggers the filing of motions of censure by the oppositions, but without a vote on the substance of the texts. The socialists would then need neither to support nor to abstain from a budget which they do not appreciate in its entirety, but which they consider to have partly purged of “museum of horrors”.
Faced with the motion of censure that La France insoumise would inevitably table, the socialist deputies could simply choose not to bring down the government, by abstaining, so that the budget they negotiated could be adopted. On pension reform, “the government used a 49.3 ban, to prevent the debate from going to the end. This would be a compromise 49.3”analyzes Rachid Temal. For him, what matters is “this is the end of the story: have our base of proposals been taken up?” The hypothesis displeases the allies of the socialists within the left. “I confirm to you that I am still opposed to the use of 49.3”explains Cyrielle Chatelain, president of the environmental group. In the ranks of the Republicans, we are amused by the socialists’ change of speech.
“It’s a bit funny on the part of the PS to have blamed everything on 49.3 in October and to come and say now that it wouldn’t be so bad.”
A right-wing MPat franceinfo
But is this lead even credible? Could the Prime Minister assume recourse to 49.3, just two months after having solemnly announced that he was renouncing it? “We will now have to do a triple backflip from a political communication point of view to return to this tool, which has many faults, but which in relation to ordinances is nevertheless more democratic”observes constitutionalist Benjamin Morel on franceinfo.
For the moment, the government refuses to discuss the use of this constitutional tool to pass a budget that no one really wants. “No 49.3, I am committed to it. Parliamentarians have more power than ever. Everyone must do their job”insisted Sébastien Lecornu to the press on Monday. “Everyone must take responsibility. If you say ‘49.3’, basically, you remove responsibility from everyone”repeated Roland Lescure, the Minister of Economy and Finance, on France 2.
Within the center too, this prospect does not rejoice everyone. “The decision of 49.3 must not come from parliamentarians, but from the Prime Minister”believes Prisca Thevenot, spokesperson for the Ensemble pour la République group. “The EPR group is not calling for the use of 49.3, we are calling for respecting the compromise path.” There is one week left for the different groups to find it, on a massive scale, to avoid the return of this institutional weapon used extensively between 2022 and 2024.
