On Monday, the Senate voted an additional €30 million for food banks as part of the end-of-management finance bill, already adopted by the National Assembly. A new budgetary tool, the end-of-management bill allows for adjustments to appropriations for the current fiscal year. The only budget text not to be subject to Article 49.3 this autumn, it must now be the subject of an agreement between deputies and senators during a joint committee on Tuesday evening, before its final adoption by Parliament.
The Senate majority, from the right-wing and centre-right opposition, has proposed several additional credit lines, most of which are widely supported by the other benches of the High Assembly. Some €30 million has been mobilised for food banks. The National Assembly had already set aside a €20 million fund for food aid associations. This Senate supplement brings it to €50 million, a measure that the government has not opposed.
'Excessive' amounts
The government was not in favour of any of these proposals, with Public Accounts Minister Thomas Cazenave sometimes referring to "excessive" amounts, sometimes "too short a deadline" to put them in place before the end of the 2023 financial year. On the other hand, the government has approved two exceptional aid packages for Mayotte: €63 million for the distribution of bottled water and €50 million earmarked for the Departmental Council.
On this budget text, the government had reached compromises with some opposition groups in the National Assembly, allowing it to vote in favor without going through Article 49.3 of the Constitution. At the initiative of the Socialist group, an exceptional allowance of €115 to €200 for precarious single-parent families, supplementing the 2023 Christmas bonus, was voted in agreement with the government, for an estimated budget of €70 million. MEPs also replenished France's support fund for Kyiv by €200 million, and provided for an emergency fund of €20 million to support winegrowers affected by downy mildew, after significant damage in the South-West during the year.
