Prime Minister Michel Barnier spoke this Tuesday, November 26, to discuss “the serious moment” that France is experiencing in the face of the difficult vote on the 2025 budget and the threats of motions of censure weighing on the government.
“It’s wasted time and we don’t have time to waste.” Michel Barnier was the guest of the 8 p.m. news on TF1 this Tuesday, November 26. The Prime Minister spoke at length about the 2025 budget. Here is what you should remember from this interview.
An imperfect budget
Widely criticized by the opposition, the government's 2025 budget is at the heart of debates in Parliament and must enter the joint committee this Wednesday.
Nevertheless, despite the criticism, Michel Barnier was keen to point out: “Our budget is not perfect, I know that. We must modify it, improve it. I said that the budget could be improved. I made it with the government in 15 days. Never has a Prime Minister had so little time to do so. It wasn't perfect, we're improving it.
The original version provided for 40 billion savings, a copy revised downwards due to numerous amendments but also reversals by the government. “We don't give to right and left, we mean local authorities, businesses, political parties and associations. I try to provide calm, serene and objective answers. But we will make efforts,” he recalled.
Among the economic zones, “the state's lifestyle”, which Michel Barnier wishes to be “more sober, simpler”. “I think I am asking former ministers and former prime ministers to make an effort. “It’s not just symbolic,” he added.
A very likely recourse to 49.3
However, the Joint Commission (CPM) which will bring together seven deputies and seven senators to arrive at a common copy risks being complex between an Assembly fiercely opposed to the project and a Senate which mainly supported the government. The specter of article 49.3 therefore hangs over this 2025 budget.
“You observed, because I respect Parliament and all those who are there and who have a share of popular legitimacy, that I wanted them to debate until the end. I did not do 49.3 straight away to cut off the discussion,” the Prime Minister first recounted.
“However, the vote in the National Assembly following the CPM will “probably be with a 49.3”, declared Michel Barnier, adding “certainly with a 49.3 because there is no majority in the National Assembly and it “This is how I will be obliged to propose to the National Assembly to adopt the budget.”
A risk of government censorship
If he uses 49.3, Michel Barnier will hold his government responsible for allowing the adoption of the budget. A risk that the Prime Minister seems ready to take.
“What interests me is that the deputies and senators do their work and that the French finally see a budget. Because if there is no budget, it is extremely serious,” he said on TF1.
“I have known since the first day, since September 5, that there could be censorship and that if there is an alliance in the votes, improbable but possible, between the extreme left and the National Rally, I fall “, he added very calmly.
However, Michel Barnier considered that this solution was not good for France since if the government falls, “there is no more budget, we will have to resume a discussion, there will be emergency measures. There will probably be a fairly serious storm in the financial markets, where we are already borrowing very high,” at rates that “are currently almost at the level of Greece,” he warned.
Beyond this crisis, the Prime Minister spoke of important projects which would be purely and simply stopped by government censorship. He notably took the case of farmers who have been making their anger heard for several months.
“I am in the process of keeping the commitments made and adding more to cope. We are doing what farmers have been asking for months and years and all this would stop and this is just an example.”
Proportional voting under study
Bringing down the government is a waste of time and we have no time to waste. Beyond the budget, there are so many projects and subjects on which I want to act with a government of which I am proud.
On the daily security of the French, the control of immigration, on work which must pay more than benefits, on democracy and on the project that many parties want regarding proportional representation,” listed Michel Barnier.
It is an electoral change that Marine Le Pen and the National Rally, in particular, are calling for, the transition to a proportional ballot for the election of deputies. A voting method which would have allowed the RN to have a greater number of elected officials.
For “proportionality, I am going to ask the professor of Political Sciences, Pascal Perrineau, to do work on proportional voting to perhaps elect the deputies in another way. He will return it in the spring and we will be ready to debate” on this subject, he explained.
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