PARIS — French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu offered a significant concession to opposition parties on Friday by promising not to use a controversial constitutional maneuver that allows the government to pass legislation without a vote.
Lecornu said this “break with the past” would hopefully open new ground for compromise as he tries to prepare a spending plan for next year that reins in the country’s eye-watering budget deficit that a majority of lawmakers can stomach.
The Socialists, who are seen as the most likely negotiating partner for the new prime minister, had demanded that Lecornu rule out using Article 49.3 of the constitution to pass a budget. Lecornu is set to meet leaders from the center-left party later Friday.
Promising not to use Article 49.3 will likely hinder Lecornu’s ability to push a legislative agenda through a hung parliament. The clause allows the government to enact legislation without a vote but then affords opposition parties the opportunity to respond with a no-confidence motion.
But using Article 49.3 dramatically raises the stakes of the legislative process by putting the government’s survival on the line each time it is used. Every budget since President Emmanuel Macron’s reelection in 2022 — as well as the deeply unpopular pension reform that raised the minimum retirement age — was rammed through using this mechanism.
Former Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s government collapsed last year after he tried to invoke Article 49.3 to pass his own budget.
Boris Vallaud, a key Socialist Party leader, reacted with skepticism on FranceInfo immediately after the announcement and noted that Lecornu had not renounced other constitutional provisions that allow the government to interrupt legislative debates.
The post French PM tries to save skin by ruling out use of constitutional backdoor appeared first on Politico.
