French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu walked back on the central founding promise of his government on Monday evening by announcing that he would invoke his anti-democratic Article 49.3 emergency powers to pass a leftist-inspired budget without a vote from the National Assembly.
Despite the constitutional loophole ultimately dooming multiple of his recent predecessors and having promised to seek compromise in a bid to balance the nation’s books, Prime Minister Lecornu said that with “regret” he would use the article to pass the federal budget.
The battle over the budget saw two prime ministers be voted out of office after attempting to use 49.3 over the past year, as well as Lecornu resigning from office in September over failure to reach consensus on a budget, before retaking his office days later.
However, in contrast to Prime Ministers Barnier and Bayrou before him, Mr Lecornu has apparently been able to secure a deal with the Socialist Party to prevent a no-confidence vote in the Assembly against him succeeding.
The neo-liberal Macronist politician did so by caving to Socialist demands on taxing business. According to Le Figaro, Lecornu’s budget could see up to €10 billion ($11.7bn) tax hikes on large companies in France.
Yet, despite having won over the Socialists to his cause, likely preventing any vote to oust him, the Prime Minister failed to convince a majority in the parliament to pass his budget.
Mr Lecornu attempted to blame his decision to invoke Article 49.3 on the government’s opposition, accusing the leftist La France Insoumise (France in Rebellion/LFI) party and Marine Le Pen’s populist National Rally of “very clear attempts at sabotage” of the budget negotiations to solve France’s soaring debt levels.
The LFI party immediately said it would file a motion of no confidence in the prime minister; however, unlike the previous two censures, the Mélenchonist party will not have the Socialists’ support, making the math to remove Lecornu more complicated.
National Rally leader Le Pen said that her party would also file a no-confidence motion against the prime minister, whom she accused of being “irresponsible” with the nation’s finances in conceding so many demands by the Socialists.
Yet the combined force of the National Rally and the LFI is not large enough to take down Lecornu alone, meaning that for a no-confidence motion to pass, either members of the pro-corporate Macronist bloc or the centre-right Republicains would have to abandon supporting the government.
It also remains to be seen if all would sign onto the same confidence motion, with the LFI previously refusing to sign onto a motion from Le Pen, and it being unclear if the Republicains would sign a motion authored by the Mélenchonist LFI camp.
While Republicain leader Laurent Wauquiez refused to commit to supporting the censure of the prime minister, his deputy, Julien Aubert, said on Monday that he would “vote for a motion of no confidence” if he were an MP. The Republicain party vice president accused Lecornu of falling “under the thumb” of the Socialists.