French PM pressures lawmakers to pass 2026 budget despite parliament tensions

PARIS (Reuters) -French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu put pressure on lawmakers on Monday to pass the 2026 budget by the end of the year after the deeply divided lower house of parliament rejected the tax side of the legislation.

He said there was still time, but urged opposition lawmakers not to obstruct the legislation, which is due to head to the Senate on Monday after the lower house rejected parts of it on Saturday.

Lecornu's appeal was the latest chapter in efforts by President Emmanuel Macron's minority government to pass a budget in a fragmented parliament - where the far right and hard left keenly await any missteps they could use to trigger a vote of no confidence and topple the prime minister.

'YES WE CAN DO IT', LECORNU SAYS

"This is an alert for the future... but yes we can do it," Lecornu said in a televised statement, adding there was still a majority of support in the lower house to pass a budget bill.

Since both chambers must agree for the budget to pass, once the Senate completes its review, a joint committee will attempt to broker a compromise between the two houses before a final vote in the lower house.

Lecornu said he would hold talks with political parties in the coming days and insisted that next year's budget deficit should be kept to less than 5% of gross domestic product, a looser target than the 4.7% in the draft bill.

The government's draft budget aimed to rein in the deficit with a fiscal squeeze worth over 30 billion euros, mostly through savings measures but also tax hikes, although Lecornu said from the start that it was clear legislation would be heavily rewritten in parliament because he did not have a majority.

He urged lawmakers to nail down budget savings, which the lower house did not even debate because time ran out before they got to the spending side of the legislation.

The government's original budget bill is due to go to the Senate on Monday, which means that amendments already passed by the lower house, which include a range of tax hikes, would have to be re-introduced or they will be dropped.

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon, Sudip Kar-Gupta, Leigh ThomasEditing by Inti Landauro and Frances Kerry)