It increasingly looks like a way of the cross. The discussions on the draft finance bill (PLF) and the draft social security financing bill (PLFSS) reveal more and more each day the divisions within the “common base” supposed to support Michel Barnier ‘s government .
This alliance set up in September by Emmanuel Macron and Michel Barnier brings together the deputies Les Républicains, Renaissance, Horizons and MoDem. With 211 elected representatives, this “common base”, according to the expression used by Matignon, represents “the least relative relative majority” in the National Assembly, the Prime Minister stated on October 1 in his general policy statement. But it is struggling to remain united to support the government, which is suffering a series of setbacks.
The latest example: the removal, on Wednesday, October 30, of an article in the PLFSS that revisited the reductions in employer contributions. While Michel Barnier was hoping to recover four billion euros, the article in question was removed thanks to the vote, in particular, of deputies from the Republican Right, Together for the Republic and Horizons groups, while elected members of the MoDem and the New Popular Front (NFP) tried to save it. Enough to provoke, after the vote, this acerbic comment from the communist deputy Stéphane Peu: “the Prime Minister must tell himself that with friends like that he doesn’t need enemies.”
“We have been saying from the beginning that there are things that are not right in the budget. And since Michel Barnier has said he is very open to avenues for improvement, we are putting our proposals on the table so that there are many more savings, less spending and less taxes,” explains Les Républicains MP Anne-Laure Blin, who nevertheless assures that she is “completely behind the government.”
For the MP for Maine-et-Loire, the government’s defeats on its own budget texts should only be seen as necessary “adjustments” that are part of a “long parliamentary process, both in the National Assembly and the Senate”. According to her, there is nothing alarming.
“This is what happens when you impose a coalition that is not one”
Not sure that Michel Barnier, who is from the Les Républicains (LR) party, shares this opinion. Since the start of the examination of the 2025 budget on October 21, the executive has essentially had to deal with a phantom majority. While the alliance between LR and Macronist deputies represents a relative majority of 211 seats, ahead of the 192 seats of the NFP coalition, the latter has been regularly put in the minority for two weeks.
The left thus succeeded in having several of its amendments adopted: a 2% tax on assets over one billion euros, tripling of the rates of the exceptional contribution of companies, gradual reestablishment of the CVAE and a 10% tax on dividends distributed by CAC40 companies.
During each of these votes, only a few deputies from the “common core” were present in the chamber to avoid the unraveling of the budget texts. Proof of this absenteeism, out of the 168 votes on the PLF between October 22 and 26, 80% of the deputies from the Ensemble pour la République group simply did not take part in the polls, as did 81.4% of MoDem deputies, 85.2% of Droite républicaine deputies and 87.1% of Horizons deputies, according to a survey by Le Monde published on October 30.
“This is what happens when you impose a coalition that is not one, with parliamentary groups that are totally incapable of presenting common points of view, whether between themselves or with the government. These people have never negotiated among themselves, do not really know why they are there and are only linked by their desire to prevent the left from coming to power,” says Socialist MP Olivier Faure , whose camp, ironically, sometimes finds itself defending articles of the budget wanted by the government against the “common base”.
In the corridors of the Palais Bourbon, Macronist voices in support of Michel Barnier are hard to find. When asked on Thursday, the two predecessors of the current Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal and Élisabeth Borne , did not wish to answer questions from France 24. The former kept close to the walls of the Salle des Quatre Colonnes, fleeing journalists. The latter had to deal with an emergency: find the group of visitors who had come from her constituency in Calvados to show them the National Assembly.
49.3 present in everyone’s mind
For MoDem MP Richard Ramos, the lack of enthusiasm of his colleagues from the “common base” to support the executive is not surprising. “From the beginning, I have said that this government is a yogurt with a short use-by date. And it is not because we add conservatives like Bruno Retailleau that it improves. On the contrary, conservatives are bad in nutrition. This government is unbalanced in relation to the central base present in the hemicycle. It functions with a right-wing float, but they have removed the left-wing float and the central hull is taking on water.”
In this context, and while the PLF and the PLFSS no longer resemble at all what the government initially wanted, everyone expects to see Michel Barnier pull out article 49.3 of the Constitution, which allows a text to be adopted without a vote. The Prime Minister was formally authorized to do so during the Council of Ministers on October 23.
For some MPs, this perspective also explains the lack of assiduity and mobilisation within the relative majority, even if the government spokesperson, Maud Bregeon, officially repeats that there is no desire to use it.
“It’s psychological: we all know that it will end with a 49.3 at some point, so the troops are a little demobilized. And as the left is voting for billions in spending, when we know that it’s not possible, a certain number of deputies say to themselves that there’s no point in coming to the session since we’re on a budget that doesn’t hold up,” explains Les Républicains deputy Philippe Juvin.
A way of minimizing the setbacks suffered by Michel Barnier’s government? His former colleague Aurélien Pradié, MP for Lot who now sits among the non-registered after leaving Les Républicains in June, sees it rather as “the demonstration” that the common base does not exist. “There is a physical base, but absolutely not a political one.”
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