Without an absolute majority in the Assembly, this seems unlikely, but on the side of the executive, the instruction is clear: everything must be done to avoid drawing 49-3. Or rather, do everything to show the French that we do not want to use it. And if the government ends up resolving to do so, it will be constrained and forced by the opposition.
Remember that article 49-3 allows the executive to have a text adopted without a vote of the deputies. It is the lifeline of governments deprived of an absolute majority. Michel Rocard had used it 28 times in three years, between 1988 and 1991. Today, the Prime Minister can only draw it for one text per session, plus the Social Security financing bill and the finance law, that is to say the Budget.
So how does the government want to go about it? The Minister Delegate for Public Accounts, Gabriel Attal, announced it on Sunday September 4: he wants to set up what he calls the “Bercy Dialogues” to discuss with all the parliamentarians of the Finance Committees, opposition as a majority, on “the arbitrations in progress”, even before the opening of the debates at the Palais-Bourbon, on October 10. These “Bercy Dialogues” sound a bit like the Grenelle de la Santé or the Beauvau de la Sécurité. An additional forum for dialogue, even a meeting place… A bit like the National Council for Refoundation that Emmanuel Macron is to unveil on Thursday 8 September. The Head of State wants to show that he has heard the lesson of the legislative polls and that he is ready to change his method.
But the answer of the oppositions is clear: it is not. They are already announcing that they will vote against the budget. No way for the RN to come to the aid of the government; Jean-Luc Mélenchon dreams of a dissolution of the Assembly and he calls for “general mobilization” in the street; as for the Republicans, here they are engaged in internal deadlines to appoint their new leader. No question either, therefore, for Eric Ciotti or Bruno Retailleau to make concessions to the government.
On both sides, in the majority as in the opposition, politics is sometimes a play where you have to know how to act as if, act as if you were ready to dialogue in order to better make the opposing camp bear the responsibility for the blockage.