Budget 2025: MPs and senators meet in the Assembly this Thursday… why is this day a crucial step ?

A crucial step, but not prejudging the final fate of the text: seven deputies and seven senators will meet this Thursday, January 30, 2025, at the Assembly to try to agree on a common version of the State budget, examined if necessary by the deputies on Monday, with the key probably being François Bayrou's first 49.3.

The “joint mixed committee” (CMP), which will begin its work at 9:30 a.m. this Thursday, January 30, 2025 and could if necessary continue on Friday, will be dominated by the government coalition, with eight parliamentarians from its ranks. A composition that predicts a favorable outcome of the debates, despite differences of opinion between the right and the Macronists.

In this case, the conclusions of the CMP will be examined in the hemicycle of the Assembly on Monday and in the Senate on Tuesday. In the absence of a majority in the lower house, the Prime Minister should use article 49 paragraph 3 of the Constitution to have the text adopted without a vote. Exposing himself for the second time to the censorship of the deputies.

Agreement on the AME ?

The two leaders of the discussions in CMP, the general rapporteur of the Budget in the Senate Jean-François Husson (LR), and the representative of the Renaissance deputies David Amiel, have multiplied the meetings in recent days to agree their points of view.

“Things are progressing rather well, there are still some adjustments to be made, but things are well underway”,Mr Husson welcomed this on Wednesday, hoping that the copy from the CMP would allow the government to reduce the deficit to 5.4% of GDP as planned, at the cost of a budgetary effort of 50 billion euros.

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Among the most divisive subjects within the “common base”, State medical aid reserved for illegal immigrants, whose right wing wishes to see the credits reduced by 200 million euros, against the advice of the Minister of the Budget Amélie de Montchalin and many Macronists.

Ultimately, the common version proposed by MM. Husson and Amiel should act on this reduction, according to a parliamentary source.

LR has pushed hard in this direction. “For us, an AME budget that we don't touch is just not possible”, a party official stressed on Wednesday. “We cannot have a Prime Minister who talks to us about migratory submersion but who does not draw any conclusions from it.”

Reference to François Bayrou's remarks on LCI on Monday, very badly received by the socialists, engaged for several weeks in negotiations with the government on the budget.

“Narrow thread”

Its leaders decided on Tuesday to suspend these discussions, after a session of Questions to the government where Mr. Bayrou assumed responsibility for his remarks.

But on Wednesday morning, the PS deputy Philippe Brun seemed to want to pick up the thread, calling Mr. Bayrou to “surge”, and listing the demands of the pink party: increase in the activity bonus, increase in the minimum wage, a larger than expected increase in the tax on financial transactions, “restoration of the credits of the Green Fund”, which notably finances local authorities for the ecological transition.

The president of Renaissance Gabriel Attal, who had hoped after the fall of Michel Barnier that the majority would leave the supervision of the National Rally, gave his support to François Bayrou on France 2 on Wednesday evening in his search for an agreement with the socialists.

“No one, no political group is completely satisfied with this budget. This is perhaps proof that there is a form of compromise”, he judged.

The right, for its part, warning against excessive concessions: “A boost to the minimum wage does not meet the subject”, has cut the framework cited above.

“We will walk a tightrope, trying to lean neither too far to the left – to prevent the right from voting for the text anymore, nor too far to the right because the socialists would censor it”, warned on Wednesday senator Christine Lavarde, budget leader of the LR group, and member of the CMP.

“With still an unknown, the choice of the RN”, “key player in the system”. “If they abstain, the question does not even arise”, she stressed. The RN has not yet revealed its intentions, after having censored Mr. Barnier in December in unison with the New Popular Front.