Former Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne urges Sébastien Lecornu's government to take responsibility for adopting the 2026 budget by year-end, including by resorting to Article 49.3. She defends this constitutional tool as a reasonable option amid parliamentary reluctance. This statement comes as threats of censure loom over the executive.
In an interview published on Sunday, December 14, 2025, on the Parisien website, Elisabeth Borne, former Prime Minister and Renaissance deputy, calls on the government to adopt a budget before the end of the year. Having herself used Article 49.3 of the Constitution 23 times and survived 31 no-confidence motions, she insists: 'we must do everything to have a budget before the end of the year.'
In response to Sébastien Lecornu's stance, which rejects 49.3 and calls on parliamentarians to reach a compromise, Borne retorts that the Constitution allows the government to take its responsibilities, unlike parliamentarians. She lists the options: a vote on the joint committee's conclusions, a blocked vote on a compromise, or engaging governmental responsibility via 49.3. For her, the latter is 'not a strong-arm tactic' but 'a less committing way for the oppositions to allow the adoption of a text, without having to vote for it.' It provides a path to adopt the budget without explicitly supporting the government.
This position comes after the threat from the First Secretary of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure, who warned Sébastien Lecornu on Thursday of 'immediate censure' if 49.3 is used without prior compromise on the state budget. Borne also advocates for a deficit below 5% and warns against normalizing a special law, like the one used in 2024 under François Bayrou, which allowed a budget to be passed in February 2025 without committing new expenditures.
