Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu at the Assemblée Nationale in Paris on October 14, 2025. JULIEN MUGUET FOR LE MONDE
After months of twists and turns, the next major battle in French politics will kick off on Friday, October 24, in the red-and-gold chamber of the Assemblée Nationale: the 2026 budget. It will be a confrontation like no other, as Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has no majority to back him but has still opted not to use Article 49.3 of the Constitution to push the bill through without a vote. The provision has been used to pass every budget since 2022 in a hung Assemblée.
Can the new government complete its self-imposed "emergency mission" to "deliver a serious and reliable budget for France" before the December 23 deadline? That is far from certain. The parties backing the government have only 212 seats out of 577 in the Assemblée, while, combined, the groups hoping to bring it down – the far right and most of the left – hold 265 votes. Nearly everything, therefore, will depend on the 69 Socialist MPs.
Although the Socialists initially chose not to topple the government after Lecornu agreed to suspend the pension reform, they have not endorsed the draft budget bill that was unveiled on Tuesday, October 14. Far from it. "What the prime minister is proposing in terms of tax policy is totally insufficient," said Socialist leader Olivier Faure on Tuesday on TF1. "The budget presented is not ours, and we will fight in Parliament to include social and tax justice," he added.
