France’s fragmented parliament on Tuesday approved an emergency bill aimed at avoiding a US-style government shutdown next week after negotiations over the 2026 budget collapsed.
With just a few days before the new year, French President Emmanuel Macron and his Cabinet met on the evening of Monday the 22nd to present the brief bill. It aims to “ensure the continuity of national life and the functioning of public services”, including the collection of taxes and their distribution to local authorities based on tax and spending levels in the 2025 budget, according to the Cabinet Office.
Lawmakers in the National Assembly, the powerful lower house of the French parliament, made several amendments and voted to pass the bill tonight, followed by the Senate. It was approved despite deep divisions between the assembly’s three main camps – Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National, left-wing forces and Macron’s centrist minority government.
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The next step will be more difficult: building a real budget for 2026 and avoiding a new political crisis.
The emergency law “is like a spare tire,” Finance Minister Roland Lescure told lawmakers, calling for quick work on a real budget for next year. Relying on it for too long “risks greatly weakening the French economy.”
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu, who resigned and was reinstated this fall, called on all parties to work over the holidays to find compromises on a 2026 budget, after a previous effort failed last week.
