After three months of tense negotiations, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu passed the 2026 budget by conceding several points to the socialists, including suspending the 2023 retirement reform. This adoption, secured via article 49.3, avoids a controversial tax but raises economic concerns for the French. The concessions will come at a cost to businesses and the country's economy.
The long budget saga for 2026 ends this early week with the definitive adoption of the finance bill, thanks to Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu's ultimate use of article 49.3. Appointed to Matignon in September 2025, he had to make multiple concessions to the 69 socialist deputies in Boris Vallaud's group to avoid censure and pass the budget texts. Among the major renunciations is the suspension of the 2023 retirement reform adopted under Élisabeth Borne via 49.3, a unpopular measure that the left and unions sought to repeal.
A staunch supporter of Emmanuel Macron, Lecornu has thus unraveled part of the second term's legacy, raising taxes, renouncing ecological ambitions, and slowing the pro-business policy launched in 2017. The French avoided the Zucman tax, but face a serious 'hangover,' as Yves Thréard writes in his Figaro editorial. The concessions to socialists will have a price: abyssal debt, rising unemployment, business failures, and a country that works less while spending more.
Politically, this operation heightens distrust in public discourse. Lecornu had promised not to use 49.3 but invoked it on January 20, 2026. Guillaume Tabard notes that these cessions complicate any future economic rebound. Despite no majority in the Assembly, Lecornu stretched the process to the 2026 municipal elections, avoiding early legislative ones. The RN no longer makes it a battle horse. Once adopted, Lecornu eyes post-budget matters, turning to agriculture and other files while facing censure motions on Monday.
