The French National Assembly, with 247 votes in favour, 234 against and 93 abstentions, approved yesterday, Tuesday, the social security section of the 2026 state budget, significantly removing the possibility of a new government crisis in France. This is because social security costs and spending was the part of the draft state budget that had until yesterday caused the most political friction in France.

This development strengthens, according to most French political analysts, the position of Prime Minister Sebastian Le Corneille who, without a parliamentary majority, adopted a strategy of political compromise and achieved the approval of the bill in question through parliamentary channels rather than by presidential decree.

In general, the bill on social security was supported by the majority of MPs from the parties supporting President Macron and the Socialist Party, while the far-right “National Rally” and the radical left-wing party “France Untouchable” were against it. The abstention route was chosen by most center-right and environmentalist deputies, as well as a number of deputies who had previously supported the French president and his prime minister.

“This majority of responsibility shows that compromise is not just a slogan: it allows us to move forward in the general interest,” the French prime minister wrote on the social network X.

Many of the MPs who voted in favour of the social security section of the state budget, averting the prospect of a new political crisis, said that important provisions of it did not satisfy them, noting however that “the ideal budget is a weak budget” and that “a bad budget is better than no budget.