The French deputies rejected the early Saturday morning almost unanimously and in the first reading the State budget for 2026an unprecedented vote for decades that makes its approval before the end of the year difficult.
After weeks of heated debates about taxing the assets of large companies, deputies rejected the “income” section by 404 votes to 1, which meant the denial of the entire bill without even studying the part dedicated to “expenses.”
Under French parliamentary procedures, this vote returns the government’s initial text to the Senate, which will examine it next week.
In a very hectic political panorama since the dissolution of the National Assembly decided by the president Emmanuel Macron in 2024, the difficulty in passing a budget is the main reason for the fall of the last prime ministers.
However, the minority government of Sébastien Lecornu, close to Macron, is under strong pressure to reduce the public deficit, the highest in the euro zone, the magnitude of which worries financial markets.
The Assembly had already rejected the State budget in 2024, something unprecedented since the adoption of the Fifth Republic in 1958. But this is the first time it has been denied with such breadth.
The left and extreme right groups voted against, while those on the official side were divided between votes against and abstentions.
Only one centrist deputy voted in favor of the text.
