French Government Overcomes No-Confidence Votes on 2026 Budget

Government's Budget Strategy and Challenges

PARIS, Jan 27 (Reuters) - The French government survived two votes of no-confidence in parliament on Tuesday over its decision to ram through the expenditure part of the 2026 budget without giving the National Assembly the final say.

A total of 267 lawmakers voted in favour of the no-confidence motion presented by the hard-left France Unbowed together with the Greens and Communists, whereas 289 votes were required to bring down the government. Only 140 lawmakers backed a second no-confidence motion, brought by the far right.

Last week the government also survived two no-confidence motions on the spending part of the bill.

Parliamentary Votes and Outcomes

The full 2026 budget bill now goes to the Senate upper house and will then have to go back to the lower house again.

Future Budget Expectations

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu is then expected to again invoke article 49.3 in the Constitution to force through the full budget for 2026, which will likely trigger further votes of no confidence.

President Emmanuel Macron's government is having to circumvent parliament after months of negotiations failed to deliver a deficit-taming finance bill that would pass in a lower house where no party has a working majority.

Lecornu says the budget deficit will not exceed 5% of national output, less than the 5.4% deficit seen in 2025 but still well above the European Union's 3% cap.

The government expects the entire budget to be definitively adopted in the first half of February.

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon and Inti Landauro, editing by Ingrid Melander and Gareth Jones)