By Elizabeth Pineau and Dominique Vidalon
PARIS (Reuters) – French Prime Minister Michel Barnier is set to ram through parliament the social security bill of the 2025 budget, leaving him vulnerable to being toppled in a no-confidence vote by far right and leftist rivals, local media reported on Monday.
After making a last-minute concession to win support from the far-right National Rally party earlier in the day, Barnier has now decided to invoke article 49.3 of the constitution to push through the bill without a vote, French media reported. Such a move is set to trigger a no-confidence motion that the RN and the left have said they will use to topple Barnier government.
Ahead of the vote in the National Assembly, RN chief Marine Le Pen said she wanted the prime minister to make further concessions and scrap plans to stop linking pensions to inflation on Jan.1st.
“It is up to the government to accept it or not,” she said, leaving open a small window for further negotiations ahead of the 49.3 measure being invoked.
Barnier’s struggles to get the 2025 budget through a deeply divided parliament threaten to plunge the euro zone’s second-biggest economy into its second political crisis in six months, underlining the instability that has taken hold in capitals across the EU.
Ever since its constitution in September, Barnier’s minority government has relied on RN support for its survival. The budget bill, which seeks to rein in France’s spiraling public deficit through 60 billion euros ($63 billion) in tax hikes and spending cuts, may snap that tenuous link.
