If the Barnier government is censored, what future for the 2025 budget?

Will Michel Barnier survive the winter? The future of the Prime Minister, in office since September 5, is suspended on the adoption of the budgetary texts for the year 2025.

His government will face a first major challenge on Monday, December 2, with the adoption of the Social Security budget in the National Assembly. Anticipating the absence of a majority among the deputies, Mr. Barnier would probably have to resort to article 49.3 of the Constitution to pass the text without a vote. This risky strategy, which could lead to its overthrow by a motion of censure, also poses a threat to the continuation of the procedure for adopting all the budgetary texts (PLF, PLFSS, PLFFG).

However, without a budget voted and promulgated by December 31, 2024, public administrations would be unable to pay civil servants, pay state suppliers, invoices, etc. This shutdown scenario – in reference to the cessation of activities governments due to lack of agreement on the budget in the United States –, unprecedented in the modern political history of France, is it inevitable? Overview of possible scenarios.

If the government is overthrown, all budgetary texts are definitively rejected. “The Barnier government having fallen, it could only ensure the dispatch of “current affairs””explain Aurélien Baudu, professor of public law at the University of Lille, and his colleague from Paris Cité University, Xavier Cabannes.

What then becomes of the 2025 draft budget?

In the event of censorship, Emmanuel Macron must appoint a new prime minister. But given the political circumstances, and the difficulty with which the name of Michel Barnier emerged, the possibility of quickly having a new tenant of Matignon remains uncertain.

To avoid the shutdown, there remains an even more hypothetical scenario: the activation of article 47 of the Constitution. This allows the government to promulgate its finance bill by ordinance, without a vote, if Parliament has not voted on it after 70 days. But the possibility that a censored government could use this article divides lawyers. “The overthrown government could not resort to an Article 47 order, because when a government falls, all the bills it carries also fall”estimated Xavier Cabannes. “We have little hindsight, even fewer precedents, but there is a legally possible pathconsiders for his part the constitutionalist Benjamin Morel. On the other hand, the political consequences would be very serious. »