France: the budget puts François Bayrou on the tightrope

Critical allies, virulent oppositions … François Bayrou is on the tightrope to have his budgetary plan for budgetary and escape censorship in the fall, but the government wants to believe that there are margins of negotiation on the side of the socialists.

In the aftermath of the Prime Minister’s shock announcements, including the abolition of two holidays and the freezing of social benefits and pensions, to achieve 43.8 billion euros in “savings” in 2026, its faithful continued to defend an “essential” and “fairly distributed” effort.

“It is not a plane of rigor, but a budget which is rigorous not to be in the hands of the financial markets,” repeated the leader of Modem Marc Fesneau.

During the Council of Ministers, the tenant of Matignon received the support of President Emmanuel Macron, welcoming a plan which “virtue of courage, audacity and lucidity”.

But the Prime Minister’s partners within the common base remained either discreet – no reaction from Gabriel Attal (Renaissance) at this stage – or downright critical.

“Almost nothing in what François Bayrou solves the problem offers,” decided, severely, Edouard Philippe (Horizons) in an interview with the newspaper “Le Parisien”. “What François Bayrou offers is an emergency plan, with all the merit of an emergency plan, but also its limits”.

More balanced, the president of the Republicans and Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, estimated that a “government party” as his “cannot discard” on the budget and promised to work on “proposals”, while recognizing that Mr. Bayrou had laid “a certain number of milestones” on the debt.

The leader of LR deputies, Laurent Wauquiez, was more reserved. The plan has “the merit of looking for solutions” but it must be “corrected and improved” by attacking the assistantship and expenses related to immigration.

Finally, nothing seemed to find thanks to the RN or at LFI.

As of Tuesday, Marine Le Pen agitated censorship if the government “does not review its copy” from top to bottom, before targeting Wednesday the decline in the rate of booklet A, deemed “disastrous and confiscatory for the middle and popular classes”.

At LFI, the president of the finance committee, Eric Coquerel, wants to censor “as soon as possible this Trumpist budget” and awaits “obviously the socialists at the rendezvous”.

“No one wants to vote for such a budget,” said Courson’s budget rapporteur (Liot), who wonders if “the Prime Minister, doing this, does not organize his release”.

No censorship can be passed without the PS. And the government wants to believe that there is a possible “compromise” as was the case for the 2025 budget.

“We are going to chat with all the parties. Obviously, there are probably more possibilities of reaching an agreement with the Socialist Party, “recognized the Minister of the Economy Eric Lombard.

But if the PS has not closed the door to a discussion, it did not open it either.

“Government’s proposals are not acceptable and do not offer a negotiating basis,” warned the leader of deputies Boris Vallaud, denouncing a “museum of liberal horrors”.

Socialists intend to discuss on the basis of their own proposals, which they are preparing for the start of the school year, whose so -called Zucman tax, which consists in imposing the heritage of billionaires up to 2%.

But the government does not want this “extremely unfair” tax which would lead to “a weakening of our economic system”, according to its spokesperson Sophie Primas. It is content to maintain the differential contribution on high incomes, set up in the 2025 finance law, and to propose “additional measures” against tax optimization.

To achieve an agreement, the government is betting on time, budgetary discussions starting until October.