French premier Sébastien Lecornu is braced for a knife-edge vote on a welfare package that includes freezing France’s unpopular pension reforms, as right-wing and centrist lawmakers threaten to withhold their support.
Tuesday’s vote on the social security budget comes after Lecornu made a string of concessions to the left, from suspending President Emmanuel Macron’s reforms to gradually increase the retirement age from 62 to 64, to softening plans to increase medical costs borne by patients.
A government spokesperson has said Lecornu would not step down if the welfare budget package does not pass but it would heap more pressure on the prime minister. Failure to pass the welfare bill would risk upending ongoing negotiations of the main budget text, which must also be approved in the coming weeks to avoid a costly rollover of 2025’s spending plans to 2026.