After the failed examination of the State budget, suspended on Saturday, the deputies began on Monday, October 28, in the chamber, the examination of the Social Security financing bill (PLFSS). They thus subjected the government, which was in no hurry to use the weapon of 49.3, to new setbacks, by immediately rejecting the first three articles of the text. This could have occurred due to a stronger mobilization in the left camp than in the government camp – and with the support or abstention of the National Rally.
Thus, the rectification of the Social Security deficit was rejected, revised to 18 billion euros this year instead of the 10 billion initially planned, proof of a “budget insincerity” for the rapporteur Yannick Neuder (Les Républicains, LR, Isère), who specifically involved former minister Aurélien Rousseau (Yvelines). Now a member of the socialist group, the interested party responded by denouncing the “dangerous slope” of “All those here who call themselves Republicans, whether they put it in the name of their party or pretend to do so”.
His colleague Jérôme Guedj (PS, Essonne) attacked another former minister, Frédéric Valletoux, accused of having “they cut allocations” public hospitals for the benefit of private clinics. “Intellectual fraud” AND “fake comments”replied the Horizons MP from Seine-et-Marne. These skirmishes reveal renewed tension in a chamber that is more active than in recent days.
Two points of strong dispute
The session allowed us to highlight two hot points of the debate: firstly, the exemptions from business contributions, which the Government wants to review to recover four billion euros in the process, except that its own troops, LR and Macronists, oppose it. . , as well as the RN. To avoid the rejection of this measure, which should be voted on in the chamber on Tuesday afternoon, said Labor Minister Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet. “open to evolution”. The same occurs with the other key article, the much-discussed freezing of retirement pensions, whose revaluation would be postponed from January 1 to July 1. This cut is also estimated at 4,000 million, eliminated almost unanimously in the commission and promised the same fate in the chamber.
Budget Minister Laurent Saint-Martin did not rule out “check the copy” For “better protect small pensions” with a “compensation” for pensions below a threshold “for example 1,200 euros”. But “I am also waiting for savings proposals”The Government played a potentially explosive card on Sunday night: go from one to three days of waiting and pay less for civil servants’ sick leave to recover just over a billion euros. The proposal is divisive: the president of the National Group, Jordan Bardella, declared on Monday “favorable” in order to “financial measures in favor of purchasing power” ; On the contrary, the coordinator of La France insoumise, Manuel Bompard, denounced a “scandalous way to try to save money”.
Threat of 49.3 or referral to the Senate
The first debates in the chamber confirm that approval by vote is uncertain, especially since there are still 2,000 amendments to be examined until the vote scheduled for November 5, which is unlikely given the twenty hours remaining of public debate. session, when the commission needed thirty-five in total to complete its work.
The debates on the Social Security budget could thus end in the same way as the debates on the “revenue” part of the State budget, which were left unfinished on Saturday afternoon and which would resume after those on the Security budget Social. Even if the deputies reach the end of this PLFSS, the government copy risks being largely rewritten, which would not displease the unions, which on Monday asked the deputies to “deep reworking” the text.
“We are not going to give in to the ease of 49.3”Government spokesperson Maud Bregeon said on Sunday. Therefore, all options remain open, including referring the initial bill to the Senate if deputies reject the text or fail to reach the vote scheduled for November 5. At the same time, the Assembly attacked in the Finance Commission the examination of the “expenses” part of the State budget, with some options starting this week such as education, ecology or justice.
