Two days after the deputies returned to school, the shadow of 49.3 already looms over the Palais-Bourbon. The public finance programming bill (LPFP) is examined on Wednesday September 27 in the National Assembly. Rejected at first reading a year ago, the text could, this time, be adopted without going through a vote, because the government has not hidden its desire to resort to article 49 paragraph 3 of the Constitution if it fails to find a majority.
The executive hammered it home: this law, which sets the country’s budgetary trajectory from 2023 to 2027, and plans to reduce the public deficit below the European objective of 3% (2.7% of GDP in 2027) must must be voted on. “This text is fundamental for the budgetary credibility of the French nation,” declared the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, on September 25 before the Finance Committee of the Assembly. In the event of rejection, he warned, “we will have to give up on 18 billion euros of aid which is necessary for our public finances”.
But how does the government intend to already use article 49.3 without losing the opportunity to use it later for other texts? The adoption of a text without a vote can only be used once per parliamentary session, since the 2008 constitutional revision.
An ordinary law
With the exception of budgetary texts, for which its use is not restricted. Thus, to vote on finance bills, Social Security financing bills or amending budgets, the government can use 49.3 as many times as it wishes. Which explains why the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, called for it eleven times, notably to reform pensions:
But public finance programming laws do not fall into this scenario, and are considered ordinary laws. “In the 2008 revision, an exception was made for the finance and financing laws of Social Security, but not for the programming laws because at the time they did not have the importance they have today ‘today, explains Emilien Quinart, lecturer in public law at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University. They have taken on more importance since 2012 when the consequences of the public debt crisis within the euro zone had to be drawn. »
The special session parade
To have this LPFP adopted, which is so important in the eyes of the majority, and without taking the risk of not obtaining a compromise in the Chamber, the government therefore wants to push through. And to do this, he resorted to a ploy to circumvent the examination in the ordinary session: the extraordinary session.
Thanks to a decree taken on September 11 by the President of the Republic, the deputies returned early on September 25, a week earlier than planned (the ordinary session will open on October 2). And among the bills on the agenda is the public finance programming bill. “No one is fooled,” reacts Stéphanie Damarey, associate professor of public law at the University of Lille. By playing this card, we clearly understood that passing this law within the framework of an extraordinary session is the possibility of using 49.3, and Elisabeth Borne should probably not deprive herself of it. »
The convening of this extraordinary session presents above all an advantage for the government: by using 49.3 on the public finance programming law during this extraordinary session, the executive retains the possibility of using it on another text during the ordinary session of Parliament, which will begin in October. In other words, the executive does not “burn its joker” for future use. And this, while several texts are already the subject of intense debates, such as the immigration bill around which the government is unable to find a compromise with the opposition.
The Constitutional Council as final arbiter
There remains one last legal point that the Les Républicains (LR) group could put forward in the Assembly to defeat the government stratagem, according to the Politico website. As the extraordinary session will end in a few days, and the text will follow its legislative route before returning to the Assembly in ordinary session, “the LR group is banking on the fact that the government will be forced to draw up a new 49.3 and to burn his famous cartridge in an ordinary session”
However, nothing is so certain. The question is not entirely settled in law, assure the two lawyers interviewed. “This scenario is not provided for by the texts so we do not know, except that the final arbiter will be the Constitutional Council,” underlines Stephanie Damarey.
“In view of everything it has judged in recent months, the Constitutional Council has validated the uses of 49.3 by the government, including the vehicle for a Social Security amending bill to reform pensions,” notes for his part Emilien Quinart. And the professor of public law puts forward a hypothesis: “The Sages have been very flexible with the somewhat brutal constitutional practices of the government, so there is little chance that it will consider using 49.3 to straddle two sessions is contrary to the Constitution. »
