It has been fifty days since France had a fully functioning government. The Élysée’s endless quest to find a replacement for Gabriel Attal is beginning to seriously jeopardize the proper preparation of the draft finance bill, which is subject to tight deadlines. In the absence of a new Prime Minister, the Bercy services have prepared a draft budget, “reversible”, awaiting political arbitration. Time is running out, because the elements of the draft bill must be communicated for opinion to the Council of State and then to the High Council of Public Finances.
The outgoing government assures that everything is being done to meet the various deadlines, and in particular the submission of the text to Parliament on the first Tuesday of October, set in the organic law. “Our responsibility with Gabriel Attal and Bruno Le Maire is to do everything to meet the deadlines and to have a budget,” assured the outgoing Minister of Public Accounts, Thomas Cazenave, to Le Parisien last weekend. This did not prevent Matignon from inquiring about its room for maneuver in the event of difficulties, as revealed earlier this week by Le Monde. The lawyers attached to the Prime Minister consider that a delay of one to two weeks would still make it possible to guarantee the obligation to allow 70 days of examination by Parliament.
“By dint of procrastination, the President of the Republic is doing anything”
It is up to the next government to activate this possible additional delay. In Parliament, some do not see it that way. The first two senators of the Senate Finance Committee do not want to hear about it, especially since the urgent need is to slow down the further deterioration of public finances. “Now comes a little tune: we will see if we can delay the budget. No, no, no, that’s enough, the situation is too serious”, firmly disapproved Jean-François Husson (ex-LR), on September 3. The same inflexibility on the part of the chairman of the Finance Committee, Claude Raynal (PS), attached to the respect of the organic law on public finances (Lolf), badly mistreated in recent years. “It’s mind-boggling, it’s unacceptable in principle. By dint of procrastination, the President of the Republic does anything”, indignantly protested the senator from Haute-Garonne.
After denouncing in June the government’s “imprudence and inaction” in the construction of the 2024 budget, as well as a “problematic withholding of information”, the duo will speak publicly again on September 4, during a press conference at 4 p.m. which promises to be well attended.
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