PARIS — Outgoing French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu expressed confidence Wednesday morning that enough lawmakers could agree on a budget for next year to avoid the need for snap elections in the coming weeks.
Lecornu at a brief press conference said he had “good news” of a “desire to have a budget for France before December 31.”
“This desire,” he said, “makes the prospect of dissolution more remote.”
After submitting his government’s resignation Monday, thrusting France into a political and economic crisis, President Emmanuel Macron gave the outgoing PM until Wednesday evening to find a way out of the impasse that has felled three governments in less than a year.
Lecornu has already met with parliamentary leaders and heads of parties from his own coalition and is set to meet with representatives from the political left Wednesday. He will submit his conclusions on the feasibility of reaching an agreement to Macron — the only one who can dissolve parliament — in the evening.
Macron, who has remained silent since Lecornu’s resignation, has faced increasing calls to either call new parliamentary elections or resign, including from some high-ranking figures within his own camp.
The French president on Tuesday met with the presidents of both houses of parliament, fueling speculation that he was leaning toward a dissolution as he is constitutionally required to notify the duo before doing so.
However, Yaël Braun-Pivet, who leads the National Assembly, threw cold water on the prospect, saying in an interview Wednesday that Macron had not discussed the prospect of new elections with her.
But it’s hard to know what Macron is planning. He gave very little notice of his decision to dissolve parliament in 2024 after his party’s drubbing at the hands of the far right in European election.
One solution that appears to be on the table is softening the target to reduce France’s budget deficit. Lecornu said that during his meeting with allied party leaders, it was agreed that the deficit for next year should not exceed 5 percent of France’s gross domestic product — a slightly less ambitious target than the 4.7 percent the prime minister had initially put forward.
Such a move could help persuade members of the opposition who feared that the pain from the billions of euros in budget cuts needed to steer the EU’s No. 2 economy away from a debt crisis would be borne primarily by France’s lower and middle classes.
Momentum appears to be growing to in some way address the unpopular pensions reform that raised the retirement age to 64 for most workers.
Elisabeth Borne — the prime minister under whom Macron rammed through key legislation — told Le Parisien she was now in favor of suspending that law and that it was “important to know when to listen and move.”
Other former Macron PMs have started to break ranks with the president as well.
Former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who now leads Macron’s centrist Renaissance party, appeared on national television on Monday evening and said he “no longer understands” the president’s decisions.
And Edouard Philippe, another former premier under Macron and a candidate in the next presidential election, on Tuesday called on Macron to step down from office once a budget is passed.
This story has been updated.
Clea Caulcutt contributed to this report.
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