A new hiccup for the macronists without an absolute majority: the National Assembly on Wednesday rejected the 2021 budget settlement bill, a step usually quite banal for the validation of public accounts.
The deputies rejected the text by 173 votes against 167, via a coalition of oppositions.
The government was counting on a last green light from the National Assembly during this final reading, after the rejection of the text in the Senate, where the right pinpoints the “very degraded situation of public accounts”, with a public deficit at 6.4% of GDP in 2021.
Because of this rejection, the government will have to resubmit a settlement bill to the Council of Ministers.
The oppositions of right and left in the Assembly on Wednesday jointly criticized a bill presented with "delay", opposing it for different reasons.
The LR right repeated through the voice of Patrick Hetzel that “the alert rating on public finances has been exceeded for a long time”.
On the far right, RN Bryan Masson accused the Macronist majority of "economic wanderings" between "taxes on the middle and working classes" and "flaring inflation".
A year of "recovery" defends the Minister of Industry
On the left, the socialist Philippe Brun spoke of the "Coué method" of the government which "fell asleep", judging the "42 billion euros disbursed" in 2021 insufficient for the government's recovery plan of 100 billion euros .
The Insoumis David Guiraud "recognized that the Covid episode forces a certain indulgence".
But "the richest are contributing less and less to the state budget", he denounced, while the ecologist Christine Arrighi pointed to the climate "inaction" of the executive.
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In the hemicycle, the Minister of Industry Roland Lescure defended a year 2021 of "recovery" thanks to a "growth of 6.8% (of GDP)", with an "exceptional recovery effort" and "protection ".
The government praised the favorable employment situation and a “historically low youth unemployment rate”.
The general rapporteur for the budget Jean-René Cazeneuve (Renaissance) again described an “exceptional” year 2021 for the public accounts due to the Covid, with the financing of partial activity.
