Back-to-school time to ring for ministers. At the end of a seminar bringing together members of the government, Wednesday August 31, Elisabeth Borne unveiled the menu for the coming months during a press conference. The government should soon publish a list of 60 priorities, “accompanied by targeted objectives”, she assured. It targeted four battles to be waged: ecological transition, full employment, sovereignty and equal opportunities. The government’s creed will be “no increase in debt, no increase in taxes”she said.
In a tense context of inflation, “real risk” shortage of gas due to the situation in Ukraine and an alarming climatic situation, the Prime Minister assured that “Ihe defense of our values has a price, it is not to play with fears, it is to play transparency. It is to propose solutions and to assume to put them in debate “. Here is a summary of what the head of government announced.
Unemployment insurance, security and budgets for the end of the year
As expected, the bill extending the current rules of unemployment insurance beyond November 1 will open the ball for the parliamentary session, after being presented in early September to the Council of Ministers.
Among the other texts unveiled by the executive in September are the bill for the development of renewable energies – which notably contains a series of simplification measures – and the orientation and programming bill of the Ministry of the Interior (Lopmi), which provides an additional 15 billion euros in budget over five years.
“The following weeks will also be marked by the examination of the financial texts, the finance bill and the social security financing bill”, said Elisabeth Borne. These two ritual sites of the fall will be so many political tests for the government, deprived of an absolute majority in the Assembly.
Immigration, justice and energy in 2023
Elisabeth Borne has compiled a dense menu for next year. She must allow “to engage in new key projects”with the military programming law, a bill for the improvement of everyday justice following the Estates General of Justice, an energy-climate programming bill which will enact the “ecological planning” which has been entrusted to him and will be declined “sector by sector, territory by territory”. Other texts are planned on immigration, on full employment, on education for the start of the 2023 school year and on the Olympic and Paralympic Games hosted by France in 2024.
Upcoming consultations
The parliamentary session which opens in October will be the occasion for three debates on Ukraine, energy policy and immigration. Emmanuel Macron will also set up the National Council for Refoundation on September 8, which must bring together all the political, economic, social and associative forces, but which is already shunned by the opposition parties and several unions. This advice will be done without Gérard Larcher, nor Edouard Philippe.
The government also intends to organize a consultation on the end of life, the outlines of which will be defined with the National Advisory Council on Ethics. He also intends to set up the cross-party commission requested by the President of the Republic, which must reflect on the evolution of institutions.
Suspense on pensions
The Prime Minister did not mention the delicate and controversial pension reform in the government’s projects. But she is not “not abandoned” and his “progressive deployment” will be conducted “during the year 2023”, said government spokesman Olivier Véran. He judged “fundamental to concert” upstream. “We want to reform work as a whole, including the question of pensions”he specified.