French prime minister Sébastien Lecornu is braced for a knife-edge vote on a welfare package that includes freezing France’s unpopular pension reforms, as rightwing and centrist lawmakers threaten to withhold their support.
Tuesday’s vote on the social security budget comes after Mr Lecornu made a string of concessions to the left, from suspending president Emmanuel Macron’s reforms to gradually increase the retirement age from 62 to 64, to softening plans to increase medical costs borne by patients.
A government spokesperson has said Lecornu would not step down if the welfare budget package does not pass but it would heap more pressure on the prime minister.
Failure to pass the welfare bill would risk upending ongoing negotiations of the main budget text, which must also be approved in the coming weeks to avoid a costly rollover of 2025’s spending plans to 2026.
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In a post on X, Mr Lecornu conceded the welfare package “is not perfect but it is the best budget possible, no one having shown that a majority exists for a different one”.
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He secured a key victory on Monday when Socialist leader Olivier Faure, whose 69 deputies are a key swing bloc in the assembly, said he would instruct his party to support the social security budget, rather than simply abstaining.
“The prime minister has made a commitment [to suspend the pension reform], he has shown he is reliable throughout the discussion. I want us to also be reliable in turn and ensure that this budget be adopted,” he told French news channel BFM.
But leading centre-right and conservative politicians have cast doubt on whether the vote will succeed, with the conservative Les Républicains leader Bruno Retailleau calling on his deputies to abstain or oppose the welfare budget.
Mr Retailleau’s instructions echoed those of Macron’s former prime minister Édouard Philippe to his own, smaller group of centre-right parliamentary troops.
Pascal Perrineau, a political scientist at Sciences Po, said Tuesday’s vote would be “extremely tight” and suggested that failing to pass it could lead to Mr Lecornu’s removal as premier and new parliamentary elections.
“[Lecornu] risks losing on his right what he has gained on his left. It’s a real danger,” Perrineau said.
Parliament has already voted on key parts of the welfare package but Tuesday will see a vote on the whole social security budget.
As well as suspending Macron’s retirement reforms last month, parliament opted against the freezing of pensions and social benefits proposed by the government, meaning they will rise with inflation. Plans to increase costs covered by patients for drugs and medical consultations were also weakened.
This means that the welfare budget will be €22.5 billion in deficit if the text is adopted, according to the finance ministry, compared with ambitious initial plans which would have put the deficit at €17 billion.
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Failure to reach agreement would see costs balloon to more than €30 billion next year, according to a note circulated by Mr Lecornu to parliamentarians last week.
Should the welfare bill be adopted, it will pass to the Senate, where it also faces opposition. The Assembly’s focus will return to negotiations on the main budget text, with deputies needing to find an agreement by December 19th to avoid having to roll over 2025’s budget.
“We absolutely need a budget and we need to finalise it before Christmas, because it will be very difficult to keep the country in suspense for another three months,” said Philippe Brun, a leading Socialist negotiator on the budget. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
