PARIS, France
President Emmanuel Macron's government on Wednesday sought to ram its 2023 budget through parliament without a vote after battling in vain to get it approved by the fractured lower house of parliament.
The administration is trying
to lift the country out of an economic squeeze that has sparked industrial
action and street protests.
But following weeks of
disruption from strikes at oil refineries and fuel depots that have caused
shortages at petrol pumps, the government waited until after Tuesday's broader
strike action and demonstrations before unveiling the controversial measure.
The walkouts have been just
one of the challenges facing Macron in
his second term in office.
The loss of his overall
majority in June legislative polls meant he could not get enough deputies to
approve the package.
"We need to give our
country a budget," Prime
Minister Elisabeth Borne told lawmakers as she announced the use of
clause 49.3 of the French constitution.
Under the clause, a law can be
passed automatically unless the opposition passes its own vote of no confidence
in the government.
"Every opposition party
has confirmed their intention to reject the text," but "the French
are expecting... action and results from us," she said, to boos from the
opposition and applause from supporters.
Deputies from the left-wing
NUPES alliance began leaving the chamber before Borne had finished speaking.
After promising an open
debate, Macron's camp in recent days suffered a series of defeats over the first
of thousands of proposed amendments to its fiscal plans for next year.
Opposition lawmakers on
Wednesday accused the government of wasting their time.
"Macronism has become a
form of authoritarianism," leading France Unbowed (LFI) deputy Mathilde
Panot told reporters following Borne's announcement.
"Parliament's work has
been swept away in a few hours," said Greens representative Cyrielle
Chatelain.
Both of them were among 151
NUPES lawmakers to sign a no-confidence motion against the government.
Such an "act of
anti-democratic brutality... leads us to demand the censure of the
government," it read.
On the far right, the National
Rally (RN) plans to file a no-confidence motion of its own on Thursday.
But with both the hard left
and far-right unwilling to back each other's motions, neither is likely to
reach the required 289 votes.
Macron has already increased
the pressure on deputies by vowing to dissolve parliament and call fresh
elections if a no-confidence vote succeeds.
The leader of the conservative
Republicans group Olivier Marleix, asked if he could back either of the motions,
said it would be "useless to pile chaos on top of chaos".
After the election setback
this summer that cost Macron's party his parliamentary majority, he and his
ministers have promised to be more open to dialogue with the opposition and
civil society than during his first five years as president.
But they have rejected
allegations from lawmakers that the use of article 49.3 means abandoning those
efforts.
The article means "the
government has the ability to force the adoption of a bill when in fact the
opposition can live with it", Francois
Bayrou, leader of the Democratic Movement party allied to Macron, told
broadcaster France Inter.
With the passage of the budget
all but assured, lawmakers had been left wondering which of their hard-fought
amendments might be left in, with the choice entirely up to ministers.
Borne said that "around
100" modifications, including some from the opposition, would be left in.
The budget "has been fed,
complemented, amended, even corrected following the debates of recent
days," she told MPs.
One senior lawmaker told AFP
that the changes, including tax breaks for childcare and for very small
businesses, would cost up to 800 million euros ($782 million).
Finance
Minister Bruno Le Maire has nevertheless warned Borne that he would
not back changes that would blow holes in the budget, another person present at
their Monday meeting said. - AFP
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