Social Security budget: the Assembly adopts the revenue and continues the debates with a new decisive vote expected on Tuesday

"We could stumble at any moment," warned Laurent Panifous, Minister for Relations with Parliament, on Friday. And with good reason: MPs will have to vote, for example, between Friday evening and Sunday, on the "spending" section of the bill, which contains the crucial "suspension" of the pension reform.

Rejecting it would not prevent the bill from being put to a vote on Tuesday, but it would be stripped of a measure so important in the political compromise with the Socialist Party that it would most likely be unvotable in its current form.

On Friday, the lower house adopted the revenue section by 166 votes to 140, with 32 abstentions, supported by Renaissance, MoDem, the Socialist Party, and Liot's independents. The National Rally-Union for the Republic alliance, La France Insoumise, and the Greens voted against, while The Republicans and Horizons, members of the governing coalition, mostly abstained.

The vote was marked by a low turnout for a crucial vote, and above all the groups most firmly opposed to the text (RN, UDR, LFI) had a significant number of absentees.

Result: "not renewable"

"It passed because the National Rally only had 69 members present (out of 123 MPs, editor's note), today's vote is not repeatable" on Tuesday, warns a Macronist official. "Arithmetically, if we consider the political positions of the groups today, it wouldn't pass on Tuesday," agrees a Socialist MP.

The close result is therefore a warning to the government.

Even if it is also a form of success, albeit temporary, after having multiplied gestures of openness in the hope of passing the text without 49.3.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu praised the "consultative work" with political forces. On Friday, members of parliament also reinstated the creation of a network of "France Santé" centers to improve access to healthcare, a promise made by Mr. Lecornu.

The government also announced that it was prioritizing certain debates, including this suspension and the sensitive freeze on pensions and social welfare benefits. These debates are expected to take place starting at 21:30 p.m. on Friday, and Saturday morning if necessary.

On Thursday, the government attempted to find a middle ground between the Socialist Party and the right wing, passing a revised version of a CSG (General Social Contribution) increase on capital gains, as advocated by the left, but with a reduced scope. This came at the cost of a significantly lower return, expected to be around €1,5 billion, instead of the €2,8 billion initially projected.

What deficit?

The Republicans and Horizons, stung by the concessions made to the Socialist Party on the CSG and pension reform, also rely on the level of deficit to explain their majority abstentions on the text.

Paul Christophe (Horizons) criticized an "artificially reduced social security deficit", referring in particular to a planned transfer of funds from the State coffers to those of the Social Security system to give it some breathing room, but without reducing the country's overall deficit.

The government hopes to reduce the Social Security deficit to 20 billion, and Amélie de Montchalin, Minister for Public Accounts, estimated that it was theoretically around 16 billion euros at the end of the examination of "revenues".

But MPs are, for example, strongly opposed to the freeze on pensions and social welfare benefits, which was initially supposed to raise 3,6 billion, and are therefore expected to remove measures that will mechanically increase the deficit.

Government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon also assured on Friday that there would be no increase - neither in the budget nor by decree - in medical deductibles.

The executive is also considering raising the target for health insurance spending (Ondam) "up to +2,5%" (compared to +2% until now).

While some members of the government had hoped the Greens would abstain, they overwhelmingly voted against the proposed measures. "This is a budget of decline (...) We are going to worsen the working conditions of healthcare workers," their leader, Cyrielle Chatelain, denounced.

On Thursday, Sébastien Lecornu insisted that without a social security budget, the deficit would balloon to "29 or 30 billion" euros over the course of 2026. But Parliament can also adopt a budget at the beginning of the year, as it did a few months ago after Michel Barnier's censure.

Pressed by several leading figures in his camp to activate article 49.3 of the Constitution to avoid a high-risk vote, Sébastien Lecornu has once again ruled it out.