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The French Assembly has voted narrowly in favour of a social security budget that will suspend the country’s pension reforms, in a major victory for embattled premier Sébastien Lecornu.
The government secured a razor-thin majority for the bill, after the centre-left Socialist party swung behind the government to vote largely in favour, with 247 lawmakers voting for, 234 against and 93 abstentions.
Lecornu hailed the result, which allows him to continue with negotiations to give France a state budget by the end of the year, saying on X: “This responsible majority shows that compromise is not just a slogan: it allows us to make progress in the general interest.”
The vote comes after the government made a series of concessions to the left over the welfare and pensions package.
As well as suspending President Emmanuel Macron’s reforms to increase the retirement age from 62 to 64, the government dropped plans to increase medical costs borne by patients and freeze pensions and social benefits, which will instead rise in line with inflation.
Leading Socialist deputy Boris Vallaud told journalists after the vote that his party’s “bet” to back the text had paid off, and left open the possibility of future deals, saying: “We are ready for discussions and we will get there each time.”
The far-right Rassemblement National and far-left France Unbowed parties voted against the bill, while the centre-right Horizons party largely abstained on the text, after its leader and Macron’s former premier Edouard Philippe broke ranks with other parties in the government’s frayed centrist coalition.
Most of the 38 Green deputies and their allies said they also abstained after a last-minute amendment was passed on Tuesday increasing medical insurance spending from 2 to 3 per cent in 2026.
The deal meant the social security budget will be just under €20bn in deficit, Lecornu said, which is more than the initial aim of €17.6bn but an improvement on this year’s figure of €23bn.
Without an agreement, the deficit would have ballooned to more than €30bn, he added.
The crucial vote means the social security package will now pass to the rightwing-dominated Senate that is likely to push back against it, but it is unable to stop the bill from being enacted.
Failure to pass the welfare package would have heaped pressure on Lecornu to resign and risked upending negotiations on the state budget legislation. This must also be approved in the coming weeks to avoid a costly rollover of 2025’s spending plans into 2026.
Lecornu was appointed in September after the fall of François Bayrou but quit hours after naming his first government in early October, over divisions within his government coalition on some appointments. He was reappointed by Macron days later and tasked with delivering a budget.
Faced with a divided National Assembly, he has opted to relinquish a constitutional tool that enables the government to force through legislation and has instead chosen to negotiate texts with the French parliament. This has led to long and often fractious debates.
While the vote is an initial validation of this method, Lecornu now faces the daunting task of finding a similar compromise on the state budget, which was massively rejected by lawmakers at its first reading last month.
“It will be difficult, perhaps even more so than in recent weeks. But the government’s mindset will not change: the general interest will come first, without giving way to nervousness or electoral agendas,” Lecornu said.
