French government survives no-confidence votes over budget

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Government circumvented parliament on budget due to lack of majority

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Le Pen warns government's backers of electoral consequences

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PM says deficit won't top 5% of GDP, still exceeds EU cap

By Elizabeth Pineau and Dominique Vidalon

PARIS, Jan 23 (Reuters) - The French government survived two votes of no-confidence in parliament on ?Friday over its decision to ram through the income part of the 2026 budget without giving the National Assembly the final ?say. A total of 269 lawmakers voted in favor of the no-confidence motion presented by the ?hard-left France Unbowed together with the Greens and Communists, whereas 288 ?votes were required ?to bring down the government. Even fewer backed a second no-confidence motion, brought by the far right. Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu will ?now again invoke article 49.3 of the constitution ?to force the expenditure part of the budget through the National Assembly - a move that will almost certainly trigger further votes of no confidence.

President Emmanuel ?Macron's government is having to circumvent parliament after ?months of ?negotiations failed to deliver a deficit-taming finance bill that would pass in a lower house where no party has a working majority.

LE PEN SAYS VOTERS WILL PUNISH GOVERNMENT'S ?BACKERS

In the hunt for a budget, Macron lost two governments and saw France plunged into turmoil rarely seen since the 1958 creation of the Fifth Republic, the current system of government.

With France depending on an emergency rollover budget from last year to keep afloat, Lecornu made last-minute concessions earlier this month to secure the agreement of Socialists to not topple the ?government if ?it resorted to using the special constitutional powers.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen said government opponents who supported Lecornu in the confidence vote would pay the price ?in future elections, including local elections in March and presidential elections in 2027.

"Don't think that no one is watching you. The French people see you, and they will make you pay for it at the ballot box," Le Pen told lawmakers ahead of the vote. "Not only for the (budgetary) bloodletting you are inflicting on them, but also for the humiliating process you are using."

Lecornu says the budget deficit will ?not exceed 5% of GDP, below the 5.4% hit in 2025 but still well above the European Union's 3% cap.

The government expects the entire budget to be definitively adopted in the first half of February, one government official said. (Reporting ?by Elizabeth Pineau, Dominique Vidalon, Leigh Thomas, Louise Rasmussen; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Toby Chopra)