LFI deputies immediately retaliated by announcing a new motion of censure, but without its Nupes allies (PS, EELV, PCF) who fear to «trivialize» this weapon. While the RN group has decided to make the suspense last until Thursday.

«Since the conditions for a constructive dialogue are no longer met (…), we must react», justified the Prime Minister in the hemicycle, deserted before she took the floor by the Insoumis deputies while those from the presidential camp greeted him standing.

His new recourse to Article 49.3 of the Constitution, whose shadow had been hovering for several days, puts an end to the debates on the «expenditure» part of the draft state budget for 2023, far from having come to an end. with only five chapters discussed out of more than 30.

Among the credits that remained to be examined were those of local authorities. They promised an explosive debate in the hemicycle, and the government, deprived of an absolute majority, risked exposing itself to new disappointments during the votes.

«We would have won millions, even billions» for the benefit of municipalities «strangled today by energy prices, staffing cuts», lamented the boss of deputies LFI Mathilde Panot.

– «Authoritarian» –

The finance bill (PLF) for 2023 will be considered adopted without a vote at first reading by the Assembly, unless a motion of censure is adopted in the coming days, a highly improbable hypothesis. The text will then pass to the Senate.

The first part of the PLF and the Social Security draft budget have already been adopted in the Assembly via the same decried method.

And the motions of censure drawn to respond to it all failed, even those voted jointly by RN and Nupes, for lack of support from LR deputies.

The scenario should repeat itself a fourth time, surrounded by the same questions around the LFI motion, in which are denounced «the contempt of power for parliamentary work» and an «increasingly authoritarian use of the mechanisms of the Fifth Republic».

Will this motion once again have the support of the RN, which the presidential camp had criticized as a «collusion» with the far right? Marine Le Pen estimated Wednesday that Ms. Borne showed «always the same democratic denial», without revealing her intentions.

Within Nupes, will support erode further? On Monday, 22 votes from the left-wing allies had failed in the vote on the LFI motion on the Social Security budget, an «aberration», according to former LFI presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon.

This new recourse to 49.3 also puts back on the table the question of the amendments that the government retains or rejects in the text submitted to the procedure.

The Prime Minister assured that she would not scratch everything with a stroke of the pen, but would take up, for example, certain amendments «adopted during the examination of the credits of the overseas mission».

– «Allies once again» –

She also cited «7 billion additional euros for the protection of companies and communities in the face of rising energy prices» or «the revaluation of wages» of those accompanying students with disabilities (AESH) .

But no trace of the environmental amendments and the PS, which had added nearly 12 billion euros to the thermal renovation of housing, with the support of the RN.

Dressed in orange vests and surrounded by a large police force, environmental activists blocked traffic on Wednesday in front of the Assembly to demand that these measures be maintained.

But «with 15 billion euros of new expenditure, punctured on essential programs, you have profoundly upset the coherence and balance of the text», said Ms. Borne, pointing to an RN and a Nupes «allied once again» around these costly measures.

According to her, these amendments would have resulted in «abolishing», by depriving it of funding, the «tariff shield», a flagship measure of the PLF which should limit increases in the regulated prices of gas and electricity to 15%.

«Elements of language to make us look irresponsible,» retorted Green MP Sabrina Sebaihi.

«Those who survive us will manage with the climate,» tackled PS boss Olivier Faure.