France could soften budget bill to ensure government's survival, finance minister says
Rewrites, adds context, polls, quotes
By Sudip Kar-Gupta and Leigh Thomas
PARIS, Nov 28 (Reuters) -France's unpopular government is ready to make concessions over next year's budget, Finance Minister Antoine Armand said on Thursday, amid growing concerns that opposition to the bill could topple Prime Minister Michel Barnier's administration.
The comments by Armand underline the lose-lose position the government finds itself in.
Widespread opposition to the budget on the left and far-right could lead to the imminent toppling of the government if it loses a no-confidence motion, while moves to reduce the 60 billion euros in savings it entails will further spook investors fretting about France's spiralling deficit.
French stocks and bonds fell sharply on Wednesday but were steadier on Thursday thanks to the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.
Speaking on BFM TV, Armand echoed comments by Barnier that failure to pass the budget could lead to a storm in financial markets, but he also struck a conciliatory tone.
"We are ready to make measured concessions in all areas," he said, without providing more details.
Barnier's government could fall before Christmas - or even by next week - if far-right and leftist foes force a no-confidence vote that he would be likely to lose, sources say.
Public opinion on Barnier's future is split.
Some 53% of French people want Barnier's government to fall, according to an Ifop-Fiducial poll for Sud Radio published on Thursday. However, an Elabe poll for BFM TV on Wednesday found that more than half of respondents believed a no-confidence vote that unseats the government should be avoided.
Much remains in flux, with Barnier's team meeting with Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN), which props up his administration, and other parties for talks to avoid the second French major political crisis in six months.
The budget bill was rejected by the deeply divided lower house, and is currently being debated in the Senate.
Barnier says he will likely use article 49.3 of the constitution to ram the bill through parliament - an aggressive move that would invariably trigger a no-confidence motion.
Le Pen and the RN have defended their right to vote to bring down the government, while the leftist block has also signalled its plan to topple Barnier's administration.
In a radio interview on Thursday, former President Francois Hollande, now a lawmaker from the Socialist Party, said he would vote to topple the government if Barnier uses article 49.3.
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Against this turbulent political backdrop, lower house lawmakers on Thursday began examining a proposal from the hard-left France Unbowed party to scrap President Emmanuel Macron's deeply unpopular 2023 pension reform that raised the retirement age from 62 to 64.
The proposal may pass the lower house thanks to support from some far-right RN lawmakers, but is unlikely to progress in the Senate, where Barnier's conservatives dominate.
Nonetheless, a victory in the lower house would add unwanted pressure on Barnier's government at a critical juncture. In a bid to prevent its passage in the lower house, lawmakers from Macron's camp and the conservatives added hundreds of amendments to the bill, hoping to stall a vote until after midnight when it would be too late to move ahead.
Macron invoked article 49.3 to pass the pension reform, a move which depleted what little political capital he had after his 2022 re-election. The resulting anti-Macron mood led to his party taking heavy losses after he called a snap election in June that produced a volatile hung parliament.
Writing by Gabriel Stargardter; Editing by Christina Fincher and Hugh Lawson
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