In theory, Emmanuel Macron should appoint a new prime minister by the end of the week to meet budget deadlines.
Emmanuel Macron continues to welcome several candidates for Matignon to the Élysée: on Monday morning, he received his predecessors François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, then Xavier Bertrand and Bernard Cazeneuve.
The list of candidates for the post of Prime Minister is getting narrower and it is time, because there is only one week left if France wants to meet the budget deadlines. The usual budget deadlines can still be met, “the timing would be ultra-tight but it would pass,” a government source told BFM Business.
Indeed, if the next Prime Minister is appointed this week, he or she would have the following week to propose a first draft of the budget. A timetable that is meticulously planned before the examination in Parliament provided for by law on the first Tuesday of October. In other words, next October 1st.
Before this fateful date, the text must first be sent to the High Council of Public Finances on September 13 and then to the Council of State on September 19. After that, an examination of this provisional budget must be carried out in the Council of Ministers on September 25 before finally being submitted to Parliament.
A legal timetable not imposed by the Constitution
This legal obligation to submit a budget to the Assembly on the first Tuesday of October is included in the organic law relating to finance laws. So Emmanuel Macron would be required to appoint a Prime Minister this week? Not really…
There is a slight subtlety and the President knows it. This obligation]is not written into the Constitution. The founding text only imposes a period of 70 days so that the National Assembly and the Senate can debate the budget by December 31.
According to our sources at Bercy, the next government will be able to negotiate without too much difficulty with Parliament to start on this basis of 70 days rather than on the date of October 1st.
So the timetable could very well be shifted two weeks later. Which leaves Emmanuel Macron with the possibility of delaying the appointment of the Prime Minister by another two weeks, with a view to submitting a budget by October 15 at the latest.
Thomas Sasportas, with Pierre Berthoux
