French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has yielded to a new raft of demands from the Socialist Party, including a tax increase for the country’s largest companies, as he inches closer to finalising a 2026 budget.
At the helm of a fragile minority government, Lecornu also announced on Monday that he would use special constitutional powers to seek to bypass lawmakers to enact a budget. Forging a compromise with the opposition had proven impossible, he said.
Using the 49.3 clause special powers carries risks, since far-right and far-left opposition parties have promised to hit back with a no-confidence vote in the National Assembly. If that succeeds, Lecornu’s government falls and the budget is scrapped; if it fails, then the government survives and the budget passes.