Paris (AFP)

Largely devoted to the demands expressed during the crisis of the "yellow vests", the third budget of the quinquennium arrives Monday before the Assembly, under the criticisms of the left claiming more justice and the right straddling rigor.

The traditional budget season, which will last until Christmas, begins with the first part of the draft budget law (PLF) 2020, devoted to the "resources" of the state, that is to say, taxes and duties, for a long week.

Some 3,000 amendments are on the menu, a thousand more than last year when the exercise had been disrupted by the crisis of "yellow vests", which had forced the first acts.

The government plans for next year more than 9 billion euros in tax cuts for the French, including the 5 billion decline in income tax committed by Emmanuel Macron at the end of the "great national debate".

In parallel, the abolition of the housing tax will continue and will affect next year 80% of households, a gain of more than 3 billion euros for the taxpayers concerned.

The tax cuts are "massive and historic", for both households and businesses, with the latter one billion euros less levies, said the Minister of Public Accounts Gérald Darmanin, who will defend the draft budget to sides of his colleague Finance Bruno Le Maire.

Some savings measures are planned, including the virtual freeze of social benefits (family allowances, personalized housing assistance ...) and the elimination of tax loopholes as on non-road diesel. And if the decline in corporate taxes continues, it will be slower.

- "Digging inequalities" -

Overall, with growth slowing to 1.3%, against a backdrop of global slowdown, the deficit will be 2.2% of GDP, against 2% initially forecast. Above all, the structural deficit will remain stable, and the public debt will barely fall to 98.7% of GDP.

This is what the Right is pinning, the former Minister Eric Woerth seeing in act 2 of the quinquennium "the death certificate of ambitions in matters of public finances". The current chairman of the Finance Committee has a budget "in 3 D: debt, deficit, spending", and deplores the end of the policy of supply for businesses, in unison Medef.

The left denounces for its part a budget that will "continue to widen inequalities." "The government again forgets the 21.3 million households that are not taxable and the 5 million homes that did not pay a housing tax," say the Socialists.

This is the "budget of the rich, act III", in line with the suppression in 2018 of the ISF, in the eyes of the Communists. "To finance the tax cuts, Emmanuel Macron cuts the budgets of ministries that redistribute and removes hundreds of positions in ministries of social utility," say the rebellious.

Almost a year after the beginning of the movement of "yellow vests", the executive is careful not to raise new challenges. Thus, having already agreed to reindex on inflation pension pensions of less than 2,000 euros, he had to give up in extremis the reduction of a benefit for seniors employing home help, in the face of protests in the majority .

Another component strongly mobilizes parliamentarians: that of compensation for communities because of the abolition of the housing tax, on which several political groups propose to return.

Another recurrent criticism is that of a lack of ambition in terms of ecological transition. The government is promoting a budget "consistent with the priority given to ecology", even if he immediately discard an increase in the carbon tax, which was one of the triggers of the crisis of "yellow vests" .

To give a signal of "greening", the deputies wished in committee the elimination of the main tax expenditures unfavorable to the environment by 2029, at the initiative of LREM.

© 2019 AFP