An addition, and a withdrawal. The conference of presidents, meeting this Monday late in the afternoon, made two substantial modifications to the Senate agenda. The body set the date for the examination in new reading of the finance bill for 2026 for Thursday January 29, at 10:30 a.m. After the rejection of two motions of censure on Friday on the revenue side, the government took responsibility for the expenditure side of the bill. It should logically also escape censorship this Tuesday.
Senators will examine the budget in committee Wednesday morning. The idea of rapid rejection is gaining ground. This weekend, in the columns of the Sunday Journalthe President of the Senate explained that the senatorial majority of the right and the center was considering “raising the preliminary question”, that is to say a motion of rejection which would be voted on before even considering the content of the text.
No vote on the simplification bill before the municipal elections
The other decision taken at the Conference of Presidents this Monday concerns the conclusions of the joint committee on the simplification bill. These should have been examined this Thursday morning in the Senate, and Tuesday in the National Assembly. Both votes were removed from the agenda. In the Senate, they no longer appear on the program for the next sessions, set until the suspension of work in plenary from March 2 to 22, 2026. This laborious bill (started in spring 2024) will therefore not make its return before the verdict of the municipal ballot boxes.
The compromise between deputies and senators, adopted by the joint committee this month, retained the repeal of low emission zones (ZFE)introduced by an amendment in the National Assembly last June, supported by LR and the RN, but also by certain Macronist and LFI voices.
Introduced in 2019 and extended in 2021, these ZFEs intend to limit emissions of fine particles by excluding from their scope certain old and polluting vehicles, identified by Crit’Air stickers. “We are waiting to know the date,” explained to AFP the rapporteur of the text to the Assembly Stéphane Travert (related to the Ensemble pour la République group), stressing that a postponement will at least have the effect of working with his group on a common position.
Adoption in the National Assembly is still very uncertain, with the Macronist group having to resolve to call into question a totem of Emmanuel Macron’s first five-year term.
The next Conference of Presidents in the Senate will be held on February 11.
