The Prime Minister took up his pen to ratify his commitments, in a letter addressed to the presidents of the PS groups in the Assembly and the Senate, Boris Vallaud and Patrick Kanner. In return, the latter will not vote for censorship.
Abandonment of new waiting days for civil servants, maintenance of the tax on high incomes, renunciation of job cuts in education: François Bayrou listed his multiple budgetary pledges in writing to socialist deputies on Thursday. In return, the latter will not vote for censure, indicated shortly before the examination of the motion tabled by LFI a participant in the national office of the PS.
“I would like to confirm and clarify certain points to which your attention was focused”: after ten days of intense negotiations, the Prime Minister took up his pen to ratify his commitments, in a letter addressed to the presidents of the PS groups in the Assembly and the Senate, Boris Vallaud and Patrick Kanner, just an hour before the examination of a motion of censure in the Assembly.
Extension for health, reprieve for education
A three-page document in the form of an inventory of the multiple measures already unveiled by the government. Starting with “cancellation (of) dereimbursement” partial medication and medical consultations, and extension “a billion euros” health spending, which François Bayrou announced on Tuesday.
The Prime Minister also confirms the “abandonment” of the 4,000 teaching job cuts, but also of “two days of waiting” additional costs for civil servants, decisions announced respectively by his ministers Élisabeth Borne (Education) and Amélie de Montchalin (Budget). The head of government also renounces the cuts planned for Overseas Territories, whose budget will on the contrary be “higher than (of) 2024”and for France Travail which will therefore not be cut by 500 positions.
Taxation of high incomes and businesses
On the tax side, François Bayrou acts “maintenance” of the new “differential contribution on high incomes” (which should bring in 2 billion euros) while waiting to replace it “at the latest” in 2026 by a “sustainable system to combat unfair tax optimization”. Likewise, the “provisional surcharge” on large companies will be retained, “for an expected amount of 8 billion euros”. To this will be added 400 million more on the “taxation of share buybacks”a reduction of the same amount on the Research Tax Credit, as well as a minimal increase (0.1 point) in the tax on financial transactions.
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In terms of housing, the Prime Minister commits to generalizing zero-interest loans “throughout France” for new housing, or even for “sustain” an increase of 0.5 points in “notary fees” by hand of the departments. “In total”François Bayrou recalls that “the increase in revenue in 2025 compared to 2024 would be 21 billion euros”while 32 billion savings are expected at the same time to reduce the public deficit to 5.4% of GDP in 2025, compared to a level of 6.1% expected for 2024.
-Retirement Conclave
Alongside these requests validated by François Bayrou are other announcements already known, such as the three-month “conclave” between social partners to put pension reform “under construction”. An inter-union meeting will be held on Thursday to prepare for the first meeting on Friday in Matignon, the modus operandi of which is still unclear. “At the end of the work of the conclave, we are convinced that they will succeed and therefore there will be a need to legislate”we told Matignon. Let pension reform be “a break” East “the recognition that this reform is socially unjust”according to CFDT number one Marylise Léon.
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The socialists demanded, as the price for their non-censorship of the government, that Parliament be seized even in the event of failure of social negotiations. “We do not, however, place our trust in you. But we have chosen not to practice the policy of the worst” which could lead to “the arrival of the extreme right”confirmed from the podium of the National Assembly on Thursday the first secretary of the party, Olivier Faure. But censorship “is possible at any time”he warned, also calling out the Insoumis deputies by defending “a left that proposes and advances”.
For the rebels, “the PS fractures the NFP”
As it has done regularly since 2022, the National Assembly examined Thursday, in a sparse hemicycle, the first motion of censure tabled against the Bayrou government. A team in place since the end of December but whose “the days” are “accounts”according to the coordinator of La France insoumise, Manuel Bompard. “When he falls, the monarch (Emmanuel Macron) will follow”he launched, also castigating “irresponsibility” of the socialists not to associate themselves with their motion, initialed by a few environmentalist and communist deputies.
In a brief response, François Bayrou accused Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party of “choose internecine war” between French people and to want that “confrontation be the law”. More “another path emerges, with difficulty, after a lot of work, discussions, negotiations”assured the Prime Minister, who received a few minutes before the opening of the debate the assurance of non-censorship by the PS.
The RN will not censor
“The PS fractures the NFP. But he capitulates alone. The other three groups vote for censure. We continue the fight”reacted on X Jean-Luc Mélenchon. For the first time, the head of environmentalists Marine Tondelier congratulated herself on “concessions listed by François Bayrou”. But the environmentalist deputies will still censure the government. Environmentalists and rebels believe in particular that “the rules of the game are laid out” on the renegotiation of the pension reform, even with François Bayrou’s commitment to refer pensions to Parliament in the event of only partial agreement between the social partners.
But there will be no fall of the government, because the RN deputies will not vote on the motion of censure, wanting to judge François Bayrou on his actions at the time of the budget debate. This vote is therefore above all a rehearsal before the decisive deadlines of the state and social security budgets, with the possibility of resorting to 49-3 and therefore, in return, new motions of censure. The government hopes to complete the budgetary procedure by the end of February so that the country can return to normal operations on March 1.
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