The debate had existed for weeks in Macronie: on the Budget, should we go quickly with a 49-3 or take the time to discuss the approximately 3,500 amendments tabled? At Matignon, as at the Elysée, it was said then that it was important to let Parliament do its job and that the French would thus realize “excesses of the opposition…” Except that this solution may be turning against the majority.
>> Budget vote: François Hollande believes that the use of 49.3 by the government is legitimate
Obviously, it is democratically normal and healthy that the oppositions can discuss and amend a budget proposed by the government. But what the majority may not have seen coming is that these debates have turned into a political forum. The presidential coalition, in a relative majority, no longer has the means to block opposition amendments, even those that are very expensive. And when these amendments leave rather a good feeling or a very popular provision, to make them disappear with a blow of 49.3, it is to find oneself to endorse the bad role.
Against the advice of the government, tax credits have been voted: on energy renovation, mileage costs in the association or the expenses of residents of nursing homes. Amendments that could cost tens or even hundreds of millions of euros to the state budget. Logically, the government will remove these amendments from the final text. The 49.3 allows the government to make its market in the amendments to write the Budget that it wishes.
But for several days, RN deputies have been claiming and welcoming the texts they claim to have obtained: the half tax share for the widows of veterans, the exit tax, the taxation of superprofits… They have not written these amendments, they just voted them. But vis-à-vis their voters, they tried to protect the French and that’s what counts.
Sunday October 16, Elisabeth Borne clarified that 49.3 would not be used this Monday, when the Assembly should therefore study the possible return of the ISF. In order not to be accused of authoritarianism, the government lets the debates take place but, as in judo, the oppositions are turning the situation to their advantage.