The future government will table a special law “before mid-December in Parliament”, Emmanuel Macron announced this Thursday, December 5, banking on this rare but already used legislative tool, to allow the state apparatus to operate in accordance with the law. absence of promulgation of a budget on January 1st.
Without it, France will (really) be in the unknown. A “special law” will be presented to the National Assembly and the Senate “before mid-December”, announced Emmanuel Macron in his speech to the French this Thursday, December 5. The day after the vote on a historic motion of censure against Prime Minister Michel Barnier, the President of the Republic promised that the “priority” of the future government will be the “budget”.
And faced with a very tight schedule, the next government team will therefore use a provision which allows the State to maintain tax revenues and ensure its functioning.
• When should the text be tabled in Parliament?
The “special law” is provided for in article 45 of the organic law relating to finance laws. If the government has not succeeded in having a budget adopted by Parliament – and this is the case – it can submit, “before December 19”, “a special bill authorizing it to continue to collect taxes existing” until the vote on a next budget in early 2025.
Clearly, as Emmanuel Macron summarized, it will be about ensuring “the continuity of public services and the life of the country: it will apply the choices of 2024 for 2025”. The National Assembly and the Senate will examine this text according to the accelerated procedure: there will be no double reading. Each chamber will therefore decide only once.
For it to come into force, this “special bill” must be promulgated by Emmanuel Macron before January 1, 2025.
• What will its content be?
This text could be quite short, with at least one article of law formally authorizing “the State to collect existing taxes”. The rest is incidental. The President of the Republic announced it: the new government, once it is appointed, “will prepare a new budget”, undoubtedly debated in Parliament at the beginning of January 2025.
“It is necessary to have this budget at the very beginning of next year to allow the country to invest as planned. For our armies, our justice, our law enforcement, to help our farmers in difficulty,” he said. affirmed Emmanuel Macron.
Note that it is possible, at any time of the year, to submit a PLFR: a draft amending finance law, in order to make modifications to the budget for the current financial year. This was the case the day after the legislative elections in 2022, or during the health crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
• Who will vote for this law?
“And I fully expect that a majority will be able to emerge to adopt it in Parliament,” insisted the head of state. Depending on its content, all deputies could vote for this bill, including those who censured the Barnier government.
“If Mr Macron does not appoint a government of the New Popular Front, the special law is the reasonable option while waiting for a real budget, with a real political debate”, explains to Le Monde the LFI president of the Finance committee of the Assembly national Eric Coquerel.
As for the National Rally, Marine Le Pen indicated on TF1 a few minutes after the vote on the motion of censure this Wednesday that she “will of course vote” for a special law. “Our institutions are made of granite,” she said, when asked about the risk of instability in the country.
The equation is rather simple. If the special law is not adopted, Emmanuel Macron will only have one constitutional weapon left to take budgetary measures beyond January 1: article 16. And if France remains without a budget in 2025, this would be a “shutdown”, unprecedented in the history of the Fifth Republic.
