Paris (AFP)

After three months of intense debate, the Parliament adopted the draft budget 2020 on Thursday, bringing a reduction in income tax of five billion for 17 million French people, a year after the crisis of "yellow vests", but leaving right and left on their hunger.

The National Assembly validated this third budget of the quinquennium by a final vote, with 77 votes for (LREM, MoDem and a share of UDI-Agir) and 30 against, right and left together.

"The course is maintained, the tax cut is historic," praised the Minister of Public Accounts Gérald Darmanin, welcoming the pursuit of a "policy that restores purchasing power to households and competitiveness to businesses ".

Taxes will be reduced by more than nine billion euros next year, in particular via the income tax cut to which Emmanuel Macron agreed after the "big debate". At the same time, the abolition of the housing tax will affect 80% of households next year. Businesses will see their direct debits drop by a billion euros.

Some savings measures are planned, including the virtual freezing of social benefits and the elimination of tax loopholes such as non-road diesel (GNR), against which construction professionals have mobilized. A measure to tighten controls on GNR also made the FNSEA agricultural union jump, opposed to "charges increases".

In a last impulse, the Insoumis tried Thursday to vote a motion to reject a draft budget which according to them "has not touched gifts for three years to the wealthy", from the suppression of the ISF to the " flat tax ".

Several speakers on the left also echoed the mobilization against the pension reform, which has no impact on the budget next year.

"You are looking to put the lid on the pressure cooker," launched Eric Coquerel (LFI), the communist Stéphane Peu evoking an "immense social malaise" since 2017 with the "choice to impoverish some to enrich others". Socialist Christine Pirès-Beaune warned: "who sows the wind reap the storm".

- "Love lasts three years" -

For their part, The Republicans, through the voice of the chairman of the Finance Committee Eric Woerth and Véronique Louwagie, castigated a budget combining "deficit, debt, spending" and a "mixture of renunciations, illusions and contempt for French".

"We are meeting the deficit and spending commitments," says Darmanin. The Minister of Economy Bruno Le Maire confirmed a deficit of 3.1% in 2019, despite a slight slowdown in growth to 1.3%.

But the European Commission has pinned France for its lack of budgetary rigor.

With this vote, MEPs saw the end of a long budgetary tunnel started in early October. Some 243 hours of debate took place between the hemicycle and the committee, on more than 8,450 amendments, twice as many as in 2017.

In the Senate, the bill inflated to 392 articles, the "biggest text since 1958" according to its chairman of the Finance Committee Vincent Eblé (PS).

The right-wing senators rejected the appropriations of five "budgetary" missions "not up to the stakes": agriculture, security, justice, immigration and ecology.

The general rapporteur Albéric de Montgolfier (LR) also deplored Thursday the "refusal" of the majority to "guarantee real compensation to communities" to the abolition of the housing tax.

In the last straight line, the deputies removed the exemption from taxation for the Loto of the heritage which the Senate had planned, to the chagrin of the animator Stéphane Bern.

They also increased the penalty penalty for the purchase of the most polluting vehicles, a new signal of a greener budget.

Under cheers, the deputies greeted the earthy Joël Giraud (LREM), general reporter who cedes this function to another "walker", Laurent Saint-Martin. "Love lasts three years, it was normal for us to separate like this today," said Mr. Darmanin. And Joël Giraud concludes by "accustomed to jokes with two balls, Noyeux Joël!".

© 2019 AFP