The senators launch their examination at 10:00 a.m. They will spend a whole week on the “revenue” section, before looking at expenses. A formal vote is planned for December 12.
Rejected at first reading in the Assembly, the budget arrives in the Senate in its initial version, the one submitted by the government.
– “Without complacency” –
We must therefore start from scratch, but it is no worse for the government coalition, represented at the Palais du Luxembourg by nearly 250 senators out of 348, from the powerful LR group to the small radical RDSE group, including the centrist Union and its 60 elected officials, essential in this room.
“For the first time in at least seven years and probably ten years, there is a clear majority in the Senate to accompany and support – without complacency but in a positive way – the action of the government,” insisted in recent days Michel Barnier.
The tenant of Matignon repeats it again and again: his budget is “perfectable” and “we will work with the Senate” to “improve it”.
It is with this in mind that the senators of the “common base” – from five groups in the hemicycle – approached the examination of this text, trying to coordinate as soon as possible.
“We are a new majority which discovers itself in the process of supporting the government. Everyone must be up to this major responsibility: the recovery of the country”, insists the general rapporteur of the budget Jean-François Husson (LR) .
All the group leaders of the right and the center thus sent a message of “sobriety” to their troops, to temper the desires of one and the other to request new aid by way of amendment, or to eliminate various taxes on businesses.
– Efforts –
If the Senate gives its approval to the “exceptional contribution” on the profits of high companies or on the minimum tax requested from the wealthiest households for three years, it will indeed be a first strong signal in favor of the government .
The upper house still risks setting some markers by saying no to the increase in the electricity tax, and above all by reducing the contribution requested from local authorities, always pampered in this chamber.
“The effort of 5 billion euros is not possible. We want to limit it to 2 billion and make the 3 billion savings elsewhere,” promised the President of the Senate Gérard Larcher before the Congress of Mayors of France.
The left, a minority, will not fail, for its part, to be indignant at what it describes as “renunciation”: “I can clearly see the strategy of the right which will say that it has reduced efforts and defended elected officials. But this is not acceptable,” points out socialist Thierry Cozic.
“For the first time in its history, the Senate is preparing to abandon the communities,” adds environmentalist Ghislaine Senée.
But the work of the Senate, particularly scrutinized this year, will only be an intermediate step. It will then be necessary for seven deputies and seven senators to try to find a compromise on the budget during a joint committee (CMP).
If they succeed, the final version of the text seems promised in 49.3 when it returns to the deputies. And therefore to a motion of censure from the left, which the National Rally threatens to vote on if it is not listened to by then…
