Sawt Falasteen - France's PM prepares to force budget through parliament

The National Assembly will on Monday afternoon examine a text drawn up by a committee of 14 deputies and senators from the two parliamentary chambers.

Although all opposition deputies voted against the text and the government does not have a parliamentary majority, Bayrou has decided to press forward regardless.

The budget had to be passed without delay, he told the Sunday newspaper La Tribune Dimanche.

"A country like ours cannot remain without a budget," he said. "The only way is to hold the government responsible. This will be done this Monday."

He has said he will invoke Article 49.3 -- a mechanism used by other administrations -- to force through the budget. It is something he had previously vowed not to do unless there was a "total deadlock on the budget".

Bayrou's predecessor, Michel Barnier, was forced from office in a no-confidence vote in December after invoking the same article of the constitution to force through a controversial pension reform and social security budget.

The move is high-risk for both Bayrou and President Emmanuel Macron, now on his sixth prime minister since taking office in 2017.

- Socialists undecided -

The radical left party France Unbowed (LFI) has made it clear that it would seek a no-confidence motion to bring down Bayrou's government.

That could now come as early as Wednesday, with the communists and ecologists likely to back it.

To succeed however, it would need backing from the far-right National Rally (RN) party and the socialists, and it is not yet clear where they stand.

Boris Vallaud, president of the socialists' parliamentary group, told Ouest France newspaper's Sunday edition that the party had not yet reached a position on the question.

They were still looking for concessions on the proposed budget, he added.

Vallaud's socialists broke off talks with Bayrou's administration last week after he referred to migrants "flooding" France, borrowing from terminology previously used by the far right.

But the party's former prime minister, Lionel Jospin, argued this weekend that the socialists should not back a no-confidence motion. Speaking at a debate on Saturday, he said it would leave the country without a budget and without a government.

The National Rally has said it will make its position clear at the beginning of the week.

But one RN deputy, Jean-Philippe Tanguy, told broadcaster France 3 that the budget being proposed was "worse than the absence of a budget".

He personally backed a motion of no-confidence, he said.

But it will be for party leader Marine Le Pen and the party's parliamentary leader Jordan Bardella to decide, he added.

K.AbuTaha--SF-PST