France’s Lescure Says Prepared to Use Any Tool to Ensure Budget

French Finance Minister Roland Lescure said the government is determined to get a deficit cutting budget enacted and will use any tools available, including untested executive orders.

Lescure presented a 2027 finance bill earlier this month with unusually tough spending restrictions that aim to reassure investors and slim the deficit to 5% of economic output from 5.4% this year. But the text is unlikely to be adopted in a vote as there is no majority in parliament.

The finance minister said the government could use the provision known as Article 49.3 to bypass ballots on the bill, as it has in recent years. Or, to avoid the risk of that process rejecting and delaying a budget, the administration could instead deploy the never-before-used executive order known as an ordonnance.

“We are determined to keep the 5% or less,” Lescure told reporters Wednesday. “The world is watching us and we need to be facing that music and make sure we play it well.”

France’s avenues to adopt a budget are under close scrutiny as investors are dumping the country’s bonds on concerns it can’t get a grip on bloated public finances. Recent selloffs have driven 10-year borrowing costs compared to Germany to highs not seen since the euro area’s debt crisis.

For 2025 and 2026, governments ultimately relied on Article 49.3, which adopts a bill if the prime minister can survive ensuing no-confidence ballots. To avoid being toppled on those occasions, ministers offered concessions to some opposition lawmakers to convince them to abstain in those votes.

However, Lescure said the situation is “very different” this year as formal negotiations probably won’t happen with just six months to go until presidential elections. Losing a no-confidence vote over the budget would delay implementation, something the government has warned could put France on course for an even wider deficit.

“You just introduce more volatility, more uncertainty and more wait-and-see and we carry over into next year,” he said. “You want to get the budget down and then move on to the presidential election.”

The advantage of an ordonnance over 49.3 is that while opposition groups could still propose no-confidence votes, the budget would stand even if the government falls. The drawbacks are that it can’t be used before parliament has debated the budget for 70 days — so until around mid-December — and it applies the initial draft bill without any amendments.

“It’s too early to say where we’ll be, how we’ll be, but those two options are open today and they’re wide open,” Lescure said.

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