The Senate chose on Monday to increase funds to help help the most vulnerable. The upper house has voted an additional €30 million for food banks as part of the end-of-management finance bill, which has already been adopted by the National Assembly.

A new budgetary tool, the end-of-management bill allows for adjustments to appropriations for the current fiscal year. The only budget text not to be subject to Article 49.3 this autumn, it must now be the subject of an agreement between deputies and senators during a joint committee on Tuesday evening, before its final adoption by Parliament.

The House is largely in favour of these additional appropriations

The Senate majority, from the right-wing and centre-right opposition, has proposed several additional credit lines, most of which are widely supported by the other benches of the Upper Assembly.

Some €30 million has been mobilised for food banks. The National Assembly had already set aside a €20 million fund for food aid associations. This Senate supplement brings it to €50 million, a measure that the government has not opposed.

Money for Nagorno-Karabakh

An emergency package of €20 million was also voted by the Senate to support "the Armenian government and NGOs working to take care of refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh".

Several windfalls have been redirected to renovation work, for the water network (€100 million), the road network (€100 million) and the safety of road bridges (€25 million). On the other hand, the government was not in favour of any of these proposals, with the Minister of Public Accounts Thomas Cazenave sometimes referring to "excessive" amounts, sometimes "too short a deadline" to put them in place before the end of the 2023 financial year.

Two exceptional aids for Mayotte

On the other hand, the government has approved two exceptional aid packages for Mayotte: €63 million for the distribution of bottled water and €50 million earmarked for the Departmental Council. On this budget text, the government had reached compromises with some opposition groups in the National Assembly, allowing it to vote in favor without going through Article 49.3 of the Constitution.

At the initiative of the Socialist group, an exceptional allowance of €115 to €200 for precarious single-parent families, supplementing the 2023 Christmas bonus, was voted in agreement with the government, for an estimated budget of €70 million. MEPs also replenished France's support fund for Kyiv by €200 million, and provided for an emergency fund of €20 million to support winegrowers affected by downy mildew, after significant damage in the South-West during the year.

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