The outcome of the vote was uncertain, as there were concerns that the government had lost the support of key centrists and conservatives who believed the text didn’t sufficiently reduce France’s budget deficit, expected to reach 5.4 percent of GDP this year.
Ultimately, all 91 lawmakers from French President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party supported the bill, with the majority of MPs from the conservative Les Républicains either abstaining or voting in favor.
Tuesday’s vote also highlighted a division between the government and Edouard Philippe, Macron’s first prime minister and a 2027 presidential candidate, who argued the bill would not effectively decrease the deficit. Despite historically strong ties with Macron, most lawmakers from Philippe’s small center-right party heeded his call to abstain.
As anticipated, France’s political extremes — the far-right National Rally and the far-left France Unbowed — opposed the social security bill.
Lecornu’s success on Tuesday seemingly affirms, at least temporarily, his approach of seeking compromise in France’s divided parliament. The PM, in October, rejected the idea of using a constitutional shortcut to pass legislation without a vote to preserve his political position, opting instead to let parliamentary debates extend turbulently for weeks in hopes of reaching a bipartisan agreement.
Failure of the legislation might have jeopardized Lecornu’s position. President Emmanuel Macron would then have faced the bleak choices of searching for a sixth prime minister in under two years or calling an early election that could empower the far-right National Rally.
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