Paris (AFP)

While the health and economic outlook continues to darken, the National Assembly voted on the night of Monday to Tuesday the billions of euros of the recovery plan, supposed to allow France to bounce back from the recession.

The text was adopted by a show of hands with the support of the LR right.

A solemn vote of the entire budget is scheduled for November 17, before its consideration in the Senate, then a final adoption by Parliament no later than December 18.

But this debate is swallowed up by the deterioration of the health situation.

"We are only talking about a health crisis and not a recovery plan," laments a LREM deputy.

The Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire confirmed in the hemicycle "negative growth in the fourth quarter of 2020".

And "if new health measures were to be taken in the coming days, we will propose to increase the support credits for our economy", in "December", for the "second reading" of the draft budget, he said. he promised.

Of the 100 billion euros announced from 2020 to 2022, the "recovery plan" mission aims to release 22 billion credits in 2021, around three "pillars": "ecology", "competitiveness" and "territorial cohesion" .

Other investments appear elsewhere, such as the upgrading of hospital careers, integrated into the Social Security budget, or the 10 billion reduction in corporate production taxes, voted in the first part of this 2021 finance bill.

"The big challenge is to deploy the credits. (...) And from the first six months", insists the budget rapporteur Laurent Saint-Martin (LREM).

Bruno Le Maire has set "the objective of disbursing 10 billion euros in 2020 and 42 billion euros in 2021" to spend "half of the funds of the recovery plan in the next 15 months".

These are "quite gigantic sums", but also "a government communication tool", noted, on the right, Eric Woerth (LR), co-rapporteur of this specific budgetary mission.

"Several measures have no connection with the recovery", he regretted, citing credits for the development of "shared gardens".

Among the flagship measures, the new loans granted for the energy renovation of buildings: nearly 3 billion euros in 2021, including 1.6 billion for public buildings.

In favor of clean energies, 205 million credits are earmarked in 2021 towards the development of the "green hydrogen sector", regularly put forward by the government.

- "Fireworks" -

In its competitiveness component, the plan, marked by the health crisis and the difficulties of supplying masks or active ingredients of drugs, insists on "relocations".

With 240 million euros in 2021 to "secure critical supplies" and 205 million allocated to the relocation of industrial projects.

For the cohesion component, still in 2021, 5 billion euros are aimed at "safeguarding employment" (partial unemployment, training) and 4 billion are intended for "young people", in particular for their entry into professional life.

Despite "advances", Charles de Courson (Liberties and Territories) regretted the "artifice" of a plan of "so-called 100 billion", thanks to a "mixture of figures", over two years.

Like the socialist Christine Pires Beaune, he considers insufficient "support for the most precarious", two days after the government's announcements against poverty.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon (LFI) criticized a "sprinkling" over two years and "without any social or ecological conditionality" for the companies helped by this recovery plan.

This discussion on the counterparts was debated even in the majority.

Finally, the "marchers" support a consensual amendment asking companies with more than 50 employees "to improve their extra-financial performance in ecological matters, parity and governance", with indicators, including "an emission report of greenhouse gas".

The deputy with environmentalist sensitivity Matthieu Orphelin denounced on Twitter "imaginary counterparts".

Conversely, the Confederation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (CPME) is opposed to this "new constraint", "while very many companies are currently struggling for their survival".

To finance this recovery, the government is insisting on the 40 billion euros from the European Union obtained through the July agreement.

For the rest, the country will still have to go into debt in the logic of "whatever the cost", defended by President Emmanuel Macron from March 12.

© 2020 AFP