Paris (AFP)

A year after the first "yellow vests", the National Assembly is preparing to vote on Tuesday the draft finance law 2020, turned to the purchasing power with the decline of five billion euros in tax on the income but strongly criticized by oppositions.

This overall vote (income and expenditure) at first reading will take place at the end of the day after the questions to the government. The text will then be sent to the Senate, which must begin its examination from Thursday and until December 10, for final adoption before the end of the year.

The poll comes as the "yellow vests" have just celebrated their first birthday this weekend by returning to the roundabouts, in enamelled demonstrations of violence on Saturday in Paris.

This 2020 finance bill is a response to this movement, with as key measures the reduction of five billion euros in income tax for 17 million households in the first two tranches, and the continuation of the abolition of the housing tax, for 80% of tax households from 2020 and 100% in 2023.

"We are on the whole on a revival by favoring the demand", explained to the AFP the general rapporteur Joel Giraud (LREM), recognizing that for the rest, this budget is "not upsetting" and aims at "hold the house".

The right has pointed the risk of seeing deficits widen. On the left, the critics focused in particular on the fate of the 21 million poorest households, not taxable, and therefore not concerned by the decline in income tax.

Even in the majority, concerns have also been raised about the cuts in some budgets such as Audiovisual public, in view of increases especially for the budget of the Elysee. Restrictions on State Medical Assistance (AME) for undocumented migrants led to the departure of a member of the LREM group.

- Stroke of "fatigue" -

Now in the mid-term, the deputies of the presidential majority have not hesitated to sometimes "beat" the government, especially to maintain the loan at zero rate, one of the main aid to the purchase of a housing.

They pushed, like the opposition, for compensations up to the face of the abolition of the housing tax, the main resource of the communes.

This compensation will be "integral and sustainable", promised the Minister of Cohesion Territories Jacqueline Gourault.

But the subject will not fail to animate the congress of the Association of Mayors of France, which starts Tuesday Porte de Versailles in Paris, with the arrival of Emmanuel Macron, four months of municipal.

Another criticism, the lack of ambition "green" this budget. The draft budget, however, includes environmental measures such as toughening the motor penalty, an increase in diesel for road hauliers or the replacement of the tax credit for the energy renovation of buildings (ISCED) as a bonus reserved for low-income households.

Too few ? "We have to start driving a corner in this country and we are starting to start the ecological tax pump," says Joël Giraud (LREM). But caution is needed, while the rise in fuels was the cause of the crisis of "yellow vests".

In ecological matters, a debate on palm oil has led to the final budget discussions last week. Supported by the government, the deputies first reinstated it to the list of biofuels benefiting from a tax advantage, a decision that could have benefited the oil group Total and its biorefinery La Mède near Marseille.

After an outcry, especially among environmentalists, the Assembly backtracked in a second vote.

The first vote was "rather a form of clumsiness" because "the atmosphere is particularly difficult during the budget, there is a lot of fatigue", according to a "walker". Sessions have spilled over again this year, with record-breaking amendments on some credits.

© 2019 AFP