By Leigh Thomas
PARIS, Aug 27 (Reuters) - French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu's minority government faces a particularly treacherous budget season as opposition parties dig in for a fight over his deficit-cutting plans before an April-May presidential election.
Here's how the budget battle could play out.
DEFICIT TARGET
Lecornu's government is due to set a 2027 deficit target in the coming weeks and must submit a budget bill to parliament by October 6, launching what could be weeks of political drama
and bond-market jitters.
Progress is likely to be modest in an election year, and France is already at risk of falling behind on this year's deficit target over weak growth and emergency spending on heatwaves as an energy crisis strains the public finances.
RETURN OF ARTICLE 49.3?
Since a 2024 snap legislative election produced a hung parliament, successive minority governments have leaned on Article 49.3 of the constitution to force through budgets without a vote.
However, opposition parties can respond with a no-confidence motion, forcing the government to make concessions - typically to Socialists, centrists or conservatives - to survive. With parties already positioning for 2027, there may be little appetite to compromise this time.
SPECIAL ROLLOVER LAW
If no budget passes by year-end and the government doesn't invoke 49.3, it could pass a short emergency law rolling over the 2026 budget until a proper one can be passed after the election.
But the new president is expected to dissolve parliament and call fresh elections, meaning a full 2027 budget might not pass until well into the second half of the year, just as work begins on the 2028 budget.
A finance ministry report warned such a rollover would cause unprecedented budget paralysis, freezing investment and planned defence-spending increases while welfare costs keep climbing.
The deficit could widen by at least half a percentage point, denting investor confidence and pushing up borrowing costs, it said.
BUDGET BY ORDINANCE
If the government survives past mid-December without a budget law, it could try passing one by ordinance, bypassing parliament entirely on the state's most important annual legislation.
This has never been done in the Fifth Republic, and legal experts view it as a nuclear option likely to trigger a no-confidence vote. Unlike the 49.3 route, the fall of a government afterwards wouldn't automatically void a budget passed by ordinance.
Macron would likely struggle to install a new government before the election, however, leaving Lecornu's cabinet in a caretaker role. In practice, an ordinance budget would probably serve as a stopgap until a new government wins parliamentary backing for its own fiscal plan late in 2027.
(Reporting by Leigh Thomas; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
