What is the revised text that the National Assembly must vote on?

From an austerity budget proposed by a right-wing Prime Minister to a text close to the left-wing programme… After several weeks of heated debates and unexpected political alliances, deputies will have to decide on Tuesday, November 12, around 4:00 p.m. , on the 30th. the “revenue” section of the 2025 state budget. A text rewritten in depth by the amendments of the deputies – New Popular Front (NFP) and National Rally (RN) at the head – that no longer has much to do with the copy written by Michel Barnier’s team.

What is the vote about?

Every year in the autumn, Parliament debates the budget for the following year. Or rather, budgets, because the debate is divided into two different texts:

• the finance bill (PLF), which programs the state budget (ministerial expenses, tax level, etc.);
• the Social Security Financing Bill (PLFSS), which sets the budget for the different branches of “social security” (health insurance, old age, family, etc.)

Each of these two texts is in turn divided into two parts, examined successively:

• the “income” section, which sets targets for all money inflows (taxes, contributions, etc.);
• the “expenses” section, which authorizes all outflows of money (official payments, public services, medication reimbursements, etc.)

Deputies will therefore have to vote on Tuesday on the “revenue” aspect of the PLF.

What does the text that will be put to the vote contain?

• A contested government project

As usual, the PLF 2025 was prepared by the government before being presented to Parliament for possible modifications.

Faced with a spiraling public deficit, Prime Minister Michel Barnier decided to present a strict budget that foresees savings of 60 billion euros compared to 2024. To do this, he intended to reduce public spending and increase income by temporarily increasing taxes. about companies and homes.

But several political groups quickly expressed their opposition to the government project. Thus, the Macronist deputies did not want to hear about tax increases or contributions, while the left considered them insufficient. Therefore, everyone took advantage of the debates in the finance commission and in a public session to prepare the text, whose version will be put to the vote on Tuesday, very different from the government copy.

• Government measures remain in place

The deputies validated several fiscal measures of the PLF 2025 “Barnier version”, sometimes modifying them slightly:

– the exceptional surcharge for very high incomes (perpetuated, although intended to be temporary);

– the exceptional surcharge for large companies (reinforced compared to the government version);

– the tax on share buybacks (reinforced compared to the government version);

– reinforcement of taxation of airline tickets (limited to one year, with exemptions for air connections with Corsica and Overseas);

– a reinforcement of taxation on furnished tourist accommodation such as Airbnb.

• Measures added to Parliament

Thanks to the low attendance of deputies from the “common base”, particularly Macronists, the NFP was able to approve several amendments to its program during the debates in Parliament:

– a tax on the wealth of billionaires known as the “Zucman tax,” named after the economist Gabriel Zucman, who recommended it;

– a tax on the super-dividends of large groups such as Total, Sanofi or LVMH;

– TO “universal tax” about multinationals;

– a strengthening of the “Gafam tax” on digital giants;

– a reinforcement of the tax on financial transactions;

– comments on the elimination of the contribution to corporate value added (CVAE);

– an ecological penalty for noisy two-wheelers.

The RN, for its part, approved an amendment consisting of subject to tax European subsidiaries of French groups, including member states of the European Union in the profit repatriation system, as well as an extension to Gafam of the tax on the turnover of electronic communications operators.

Several amendments were also approved thanks to a transpartisan consensus, such as a kilometer tax for “environmental harmonization” or a tax that penalizes companies that do not respect the feminization of their management bodies.

• Government measures ruled out

Finally, during parliamentary discussions, deputies eliminated several measures from the “Barnier version” of the 2025 PLF in the name of tax justice and the defense of the middle classes:

– the increase in the tax on electricity;

– the increase in the ecological penalty for vehicles;

– the increase in taxes on gas boilers.

• A disturbed financial balance

The initial project of the Barnier government provided for an increase in mandatory deductions of 24 billion euros in 2025. The amendments voted by the deputies significantly modified this figure: 30 billion in additional taxes were voted and 20 billion were eliminated, “after from a note ordered by the general budget rapporteur, the centrist Charles de Courson, distributed it on October 31, that is, even before the last week of the exam.

Does the final text have any chance of being adopted by Parliament?

Despite the satisfaction of the left and the RN, it is not guaranteed that all of these new tax increases imposed against the government’s advice will ultimately be validated.

In fact, the “revenue” component of the PLF as a whole must now be approved by deputies during the solemn vote on November 12. And it is possible that the deputies of the government bloc (The Republicans, Renaissance, Horizons and MoDem) will vote against the project to signal their disapproval of the new balance imposed by the left and the RN.

In case of rejection, senators would examine the budget based on the government’s initial version. Everything could then be resolved in a mixed commission (CMP), a body that brings together seven deputies and seven senators to find a compromise in the event of disagreement after the examination of a text by the National Assembly and the Senate. By having a more comfortable base in the Senate, dominated by the right, the government could then restore a project closer to its initial copy.

But it is not even certain that the examination of the draft budget in first reading can be concluded within the forty-day period imposed by the Constitution, that is, before November 21. To break the deadlock, the Government could be forced to resort to article 49.3 of the Constitution, which allows a text to be adopted without a vote.

Michel Barnier would then be free to choose himself the version of the PLF that he would present to 49.3, based (or not) on the amendments presented by parliamentarians during the budget debates. He would then have to find a delicate balance between the priority he has given himself (saving 60 billion euros) and preserving the sensitivity of a National Assembly that is not his property and that can decide at any moment to overthrow his government. .