By Elizabeth Pineau and Ingrid Melander
PARIS, Jan 14 (Reuters) – French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu survived two no-confidence votes in parliament on Wednesday, clearing the way for the government to focus on yet another budget showdown in the coming days.
The no-confidence motions, filed by the far-right National Rally (RN) and hard-left France Unbowed (LFI), aimed to protest the European Union’s trade agreement with the Mercosur bloc.
Despite French opposition, EU member states last week approved the signing of the long-debated deal with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The RN and LFI accused the government of not doing enough to block it.
“Inside the country, you are a government of vassals serving the rich. Outside, you are humiliating our nation before the European Commission and the U.S. empire,” chief LFI lawmaker Mathilde Panot told the government, speaking in parliament ahead of Wednesday’s no-confidence motion votes.
PM SAYS OPPOSITION LEADERS ‘ACTING LIKE SNIPERS’
The Socialist Party had ruled out backing the no-confidence motions and the conservative The Republicans also said they would not vote to censure the government over Mercosur.
As a result, both motions failed. The one tabled by LFI received only 256 votes in favour, 32 votes short of what was needed for the motion to pass. The second motion, put forward by the far right, received 142 votes in favour and also failed.
Lecornu said time spent on the no-confidence votes was further delaying fraught debates on the country’s 2026 budget, which he said political leaders should instead focus on.
“You are acting like snipers lying in wait, firing into the executive’s back at the very moment when we must confront international disruptions,” he said.
NEXT ON THE AGENDA: TOUGH BUDGET TALKS
Now, one of several options regarding the 2026 budget would be for Lecornu to invoke Article 49.3 of the Constitution to push through the finance bill without a vote, after negotiating a text with all groups except the RN and LFI, one government source said. That would almost certainly lead to more motions of no-confidence.
Lawmakers are eager to end weeks of wrangling over the budget, even if it means the country’s deficit remains near 5%, sources said.
President Emmanuel Macron, according to his entourage, wants a budget adopted in January and is “neutral” on how to achieve that.
Government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon said on Tuesday that “nothing is excluded” to pass the budget.
France’s political situation has been fragile since 2022, when Macron lost his majority in parliament.
His problems worsened when he unexpectedly called early legislative elections in mid-2024, only to deliver a hung parliament split between three distinct ideological blocs: his centre-right alliance, the left, and the RN.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau; Additional reporting by Dominique Vidalon, Blandine Henault and Zhifan Liu; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Alison Williams)
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