This Monday, the deputies resumed work in session in the Hemicycle. A short week of extraordinary session before the start of the ordinary session, October 2. 20 minutes take this opportunity to give you the menu that awaits the members of the lower house of Parliament in the coming months.
As an entry, full employment
This is the first subject that MPs focus on. In reality, the Social Affairs Committee has even been there since last week, but since Monday, it has headed to the Hemicycle. The project aims to give the country the means to achieve 5% unemployment, commonly considered to be the rate below which “full employment” is achieved, an objective decreed during the last presidential campaign by Emmanuel Macron.
The government wants to change the name of Pôle emploi to France Travail, and put in place “more personalized and more intensive support” for job seekers. In return, they would sign an “engagement contract” with “duties”. This is where the problem lies, because these duties could amount to 15 to 20 hours of weekly activities, as the Senate LRs want. The left is calling for free work, Olivier Dussopt, the Minister of Labor, assures that these would be integration activities. The government should easily find a majority on this text with LR.
A first 49.3 from the hors d’oeuvre?
This is the other big piece of this start of the session, the Public Finance Programming Law. In 2022, the government experienced one of its first big setbacks in this area. It is only a “steering” text, but it is essential for France to be able to receive the billions from the post-Covid European fund. Several sources indicate that Bruno Le Maire, the Minister of the Economy, is confident of obtaining a majority. Problem: it would only be due to the abstention of the National Rally. This would thus be the first time that a government project has gone through a decisive vote by the RN.
Many do not want to hear about this precedent among the Macronists. Those defend the use of a “preventive 49.3” so as not to be at the mercy of an extreme right which could also change its mind at the last moment, it has already happened. An appointment would be made on Wednesday evening for this first 49.3 of the season. The government ingeniously placed this text in the small extraordinary session which precedes the ordinary session which begins on October 2, so as not to miss out on its only possible 49.3 excluding budgetary texts at the start of the year.
The 2024 budget as the main course
Since we’re talking about 49.3, it’s time to talk about the 2024 budget, which will occupy most of Parliament’s time between mid-October and the end of the year. The government does not have more of a majority than last year to pass its finance bill (PLF, the state budget) and its Social Security finance bill (PLFSS). Everyone therefore expects a series of 49.3, at least ten, as in 2022.
The project itself will be presented this week by the government and the new Minister Delegate in charge of Public Accounts, Thomas Cazenave. It remains to be seen how much time MPs will have to examine the text in session at first reading before the first ax. Last year, they were allowed a short week.
Sour dessert during the RN parliamentary niche
During the previous session, in addition to pension reform and a bit of the budget, it was mainly the parliamentary niche days which animated the Assembly. The “niches” are these days dedicated to the legislative proposals of a group, each has one per year. The largest opposition group is the RN which will open the ball in mid-October. And there is already controversy: having so far failed to make allies on its proposals, the RN is trying to trap its competitors by taking up some of their most consensual proposals: the cuckoo strategy, which is making its nest among others.
In this case, the RN proposes to include endometriosis in the list of long-term conditions (ALD) of Social Security, which would allow better care for women who are victims of it. The previous Assembly had already made a unanimous wish for this measure at the beginning of 2022, on a text from the rebellious Clémentine Autain. But since then, even though a simple ministerial decree was enough, nothing has changed on the part of the Ministry of Health. The LFI MP for Seine-Saint-Denis sent a letter to Aurélien Rousseau asking him to take action before the RN niche day, in order to pull the rug out from under him. No response yet.
Upset coffee at the National Assembly office?
This is a slightly more political point: each year, at the start of the session, the key positions of the Assembly (vice-presidents, secretaries, quaestors… but not president) are put back into play. Usually, they are more or less tacitly renewed. But this year, some, notably environmentalists, want to question the presence of two vice-presidents of the RN, who therefore chair certain sessions. Last year, the LR right, but also the majority, favored their accessions to these very prominent positions, considering the new importance of the RN group, without being obliged to do so.
Environmentalists want to put pressure on the majority to reverse this “initial mistake”, says Cyrielle Châtelain, the head of green deputies. Some are for the majority, but rather mezzo vocce. Because Yaël Braun-Pivet, the president of the Assembly, defends the status quo and the work of her vice-presidents, including those from the far right. On the left, basically, most of the deputies agree with the environmentalists. But by playing this game, the rebels are a little afraid that the majority will take the opportunity to replace Éric Coquerel at the head of the strategic finance committee.