For the first time in 45 years, France will end the year without a budget for the following year, and will have to pass a “special law,” a constitutional tool to guarantee the continuity of the state. Only yesterday this situation was highly unlikely, but it is now certain, according to President Emmanuel Macron.
“A special law will be introduced before mid-December in Parliament” to “ensure the continuity of public services and the life of the country,” he said in a televised address, on Thursday, December 5, even though it is not his prerogative to present legislation. Then, “at the beginning of the year [2025],” the government − that is yet to be named − “will prepare a new budget,” he said.
In a few words, the story of the most complicated budget bill of the Fifth Republic came to an end. A cursed budget, prepared half-heartedly by Gabriel Attal’s resigning government, reworked in a fortnight by his successor, Michel Barnier, sent to the Assemblée Nationale after the deadline, only to be torn to shreds by opponents on all sides, and now thrown in the garbage can by the president. An impossible budget, torn between the need for strong measures to reduce a spiraling deficit and the inability of a fractured Assemblée to agree on what policy should be pursued.
After the fall of Barnier’s government on Wednesday, following the vote of a motion of no confidence, some still thought it conceivable that a new prime minister would take up the bill being discussed in the Sénat, amend it and have it adopted by Parliament before Christmas. “If the president appoints a prime minister very quickly, it’s possible,” said Philippe Brun, a Socialist MP and a specialist in budgetary issues, on Thursday.
Hopes dashed
Macron’s speech dashed those hopes. The quest for a budget enacted by the end of the year is over. Now it’s time for a special law, a procedure used only once before. On Christmas Eve in 1979, the Constitutional Council struck down the draft budget for 1980 that the prime minister, Raymond Barre, had pushed through without following the correct procedure. As a matter of urgency, the government had passed a two-sentence bill authorizing it “to continue to collect existing taxes in 1980.”
A similar bill is being studied by the Finance Ministry and the prime minister’s office. It aims to prevent the government from losing its ability to act after January 1, 2025, due to a lack of budget. As in 1979, the first sentence should authorize the government to collect taxes, so that revenue continues to flow into public coffers. This time, the special law should also allow the government and social security to raise debt.
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