Paris (AFP)

After three weeks of debate, the Senate pronounced Tuesday on the whole of the draft budget for 2020, reviewed and corrected with in particular the delay of the mechanism intended to compensate for the disappearance of the tax of habitation and the suppression of the tax increase on diesel.

In an explosive social context, the senatorial majority on the right should vote at first reading the amended text, whose flagship measure remains a decrease in income tax of 5 billion to 17 million French.

On the other hand the left will vote against, the Socialists regretting that the fiscal measures do not benefit "those who are most in difficulty", while the majority communist group CRCE believes that the budget "favors the richest by organizing austerity ".

The National Assembly, dominated by the presidential majority, has already adopted the bill of finance at first reading. After the vote of the Senate, deputies and senators will try to agree on a common text in mixed joint commission.

In case of failure, a new reading will be organized in each of the chambers, for the purpose of final adoption before Christmas, the last word returning to the Assembly.

"We do not hope for a conclusive CMP," Jérôme Bascher (LR) told AFP on Monday. "But we hope to advance the text by passing useful measures."

Overall, senators have corrected the revenue side of the budget without questioning fundamentals.

"We are more in the pointillism than in the art of the fresco", so could comment the spokesperson of the group LREM Julien Bargeton.

The main stumbling block revolved around the abolition of the housing tax. For senators, there is no question of returning to this measure that should affect 80% of households in 2020, for a gain of 3.7 billion euros of purchasing power. But they opposed the compensation mechanism for communities as planned by the government.

The measures adopted by the Senate include the extension of the "rebate" of the housing tax for one more year, until 2021, thus shifting by one year the new scheme of financing of local authorities.

- Economies -

Senators have also amended the "green taxation" section, which has been criticized as a "false ecological tax".

In particular, they abolished altogether the provision of increasing by 2 cents the taxes on diesel for road transport, against which the profession is mobilized.

Jean-François Husson (LR) considers "worrying the lack of willingness to listen and take into account the government". "In a France after + yellow vests +, we need the elected to regain the trust of the French," he said.

Senators rejected the appropriations of several "missions" budget, considered insufficient: agriculture, security, justice, immigration, ecology.

The examination of the unrelated articles of the text (having no impact in 2020) continued until Monday evening, in a receding hemicycle.

The Senate opposed a reduction in the tax benefit associated with corporate philanthropy, which must generate savings for the state, but which worries associations and foundations. By the end of 2021, it extended the Rural Revitalization Zone (ZRR) regime for the municipalities that were due to exit in 2020.

The upper house has yet voted a postponement of one year of the tax of ten euros for fixed-term contracts, to allow time for companies to negotiate a branch agreement.

With the approval of the government, the Senate finally adopted a series of provisions aimed at "more strictly regulating" the experimentation of collecting data on social networks to detect tax fraud.

The senatorial right, which blames the government for abandoning the deficit and debt reduction targets, has also proposed measures of "savings", such as an increase in the working hours of state officials.

© 2019 AFP