France's reshuffled government scraped through its first major test today when parliament's lower house voted through a controversial programme of economic reforms despite a wave of dissent within the ruling Socialist party.
President Francois Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls have made a business-friendly programme of reductions in payroll and income taxes the centrepiece of their plan to lift the country out of the economic mire.
But the strategy has provoked deep misgivings within their own party, with lawmakers questioning the morality and economic logic of the proposals to cut 50 billion euros (USD 70 billion) from state spending over the next three years, partly through freezing a range of welfare benefits and the pay of most public sector workers.
As such, all eyes were on a consultative vote held in the National Assembly on Tuesday evening, which eventually saw 265 lawmakers vote the plan through, 232 cast their ballots against it and 67 abstain.
Valls immediately welcomed the outcome.
"It was essential... That there be a vote that showed that the majority, beyond all the debates, approved this project," he told parliament.
But the economic plan was hard won and 41 Socialist lawmakers abstained from voting, highlighting the deep unease within the ruling party over the plan.
Valls, who replaced former prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault at the end of March after the Socialists suffered a drubbing at local elections, had tried to soothe the rebel left of his party yesterday.
He unveiled a series of concessions on the spending cuts that will notably ensure some five million pensioners are no longer affected by the welfare freeze. But these failed to appease some who are against the government's so-called Stability Programme.
