There is still no new prime minister. An executive confined to “current affairs” for forty-eight days. For the preparation of the 2025 state budget, the situation caused by Emmanuel Macron’s failure to choose a new tenant of Matignon is becoming so tense that the resigning government goes so far as to sit on the law and alter the timetable written in the texts. According to information from WorldHe is even considering postponing the official transmission of the finance bill to parliament, which would be a first in recent history.
For weeks, the resigned government has been caught in the crossfire. On the one hand, it no longer has to make political decisions. On the other hand, it must guarantee the continuity of the State, thus ensuring that France can have a budget on 1Ahem January 2025. Amid these rather contradictory demands, the executive has belatedly drawn up a draft budget and sent letters to the ministries limiting their appropriations. All state expenditure is frozen at 492 billion euros, as in the initial finance law approved for 2024.
Initially, the government had to present to the parliamentarians the first lines of the budget, on the expenditure side, “before July 15th.” This is what the organic law on finance laws states. But this year, Matignon decided not to respect this deadline in order not to sign a binding administrative document and instead leave room for manoeuvre to the next government. A month and a half after the deadline, Scheduled for July 15, the “separately printed” document provided for by law is not yet available. Enough to arouse discontent among parliamentarians.
On Friday 30 August, the president and the general rapporteur of the National Assembly’s finance committee gave Thomas Cazenave, the resigning Minister of Public Accounts, an ultimatum. Either the information blocked at Matignon is transmitted to them by Monday 2 September at the latest, or Eric Coquerel (La France insoumise, LFI) and Charles de Courson (Libertés, Independents, Overseas and Territories) will go and collect it themselves at Bercy, they threaten in a letter distributed on 30 August by Agence France-Presse.
“Red alert”
Thomas Cazenave heard the message. “On Monday afternoon, parliamentarians will have the information”his cabinet promises. However, it will not be a legal “separate” but a document containing more or less the same elements, without having the character of an administrative act. In August, Matignon invented the “reversible budget”, sending out official budgets designed to be modified by the next government. Here he continues his budgetary creativity with the “separate half-print”.
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