France can still pass budget by year-end, finance minister says

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PARIS, Dec 11 (Reuters) – France still has time to pass a budget before the end of the year and can pass special stopgap legislation to avoid a shutdown in spending if time runs out, Finance Minister Roland Lescure said on Thursday.

The 2026 budget bill is currently under discussion in the Senate after the lower house rejected its tax provisions last month.

The Senate is due to vote on it early next week before a joint committee from both houses hammers out a new version that must then pass the lower house by December 23.

Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu’s government has little room to manoeuvre in France’s fractious parliament, where budget battles have already toppled three governments since President Emmanuel Macron lost his majority in a 2024 snap election.

“I remain convinced that adopting a budget before the end of the year is possible,” Lescure told journalists.

If that does not happen in time, special temporary legislation could quickly be voted through parliament, Lescure said.

Such legislation would allow France to avoid a U.S.-style government shutdown and permit the state to keep spending and collecting taxes in line with limits set in the 2025 budget.

The Senate is likely to approve a version of the budget bill with fewer tax hikes while more spending cuts need to be found to offset a larger-than-planned funding shortfall in the social security budget that the lower house approved this week.

Lescure said the bottom line was that the overall public sector budget deficit next year was likely to be closer to 5% of economic output than the government’s original 4.7% target.

(Reporting by Leigh Thomas;Editing by Alison Williams)