Michel Barnier on Monday engaged the government in responsibility for the Social Security financing bill through article 49.3, activating this tool for the first time since his appointment in September. The deputies of the New Popular Front immediately announced the tabling of a motion of censure. The National Rally group, chaired by Marine Le Pen, announced that it will table its own motion and vote for that of the left.
Michel Barnier has thus joined the “winner list” of Prime Ministers who used 49.3 during their time at Matignon under the Fifth Republic. This article of the Constitution has been used by many Prime Ministers in the past: 113 times, in total.
Michel Rocard tops this ranking with 28 uses. Lacking an absolute majority in Parliament, the Socialist Prime Minister took responsibility 28 times via article 49.3 at the start of François Mitterrand’s second seven-year term (1988-1995). Fifteen texts were thus adopted, notably the law creating the Superior Audiovisual Council, the reform of the statute of the Régie Renault and the 1990-1993 military programming law.
In second place, Élisabeth Borne, Prime Minister from May 2022 to January 2024, who used it 23 times. In two months at the end of 2022, she used 49.3 ten times and thwarted 12 motions of censure from Nupes, LFI or the RN, in order to pass the 2023 State and Social Security budgets without a vote. Such a pace had not happened since 1989. On March 16, 2023, Élisabeth Borne and Emmanuel Macron decided to activate 49.3 for the 11th time to pass her very controversial pension reform which pushes back the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 years old. On the 20th, she defeated two motions of censure. On September 27, she released her 12th 49.3 on the 2023-2027 public finance programming project.
The government then used the constitutional weapon of 49.3 ten times to pass without a vote the State budget and that of Social Security adopted in December 2023. Until her departure in January 2024, Élisabeth Borne will have at in total activated this system 23 times, on six texts, and faced around thirty motions of censure.
A trio of Prime Ministers occupies 3rd place on this “parliamentary” podium. Edith Cresson, Jacques Chirac and Raymond Barre. Édith Cresson (May 1991-April 1992) used 49.3 eight times to force through four bills, including the 1992 budget and the creation of the Medicines Agency. From May 1986 to May 1988: the president of the RPR at the time Jacques Chirac, brought to Matignon by his victory in the 1986 legislative elections, but who had a narrow parliamentary majority, used article 49.3 eight times and succeeded thus to have eight texts adopted without debate. Raymond Barre from 1976 to 1981 also used it eight times when he also had a majority in the Assembly.
In most cases where article 49.3 has been used, the opposition has tabled a motion of censure, each time rejected with the exception of the Pompidou government of 1962. Since the constitutional revision of 2008, article 49.3 has not can only be used on a budget bill and only one other type of text during the parliamentary session. But if the Council of Ministers has authorized it, the Prime Minister can use it each time the same project is read.
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