French President Emmanuel Macron’s government said on Wednesday it would pass the 2023 budget through the lower house of parliament without a vote, using a rarely used constitutional prerogative, AFP reported.

Macron’s government will resort to this latest decision after losing its absolute majority in the National Assembly, the lower house of the Paris legislature, in elections held in June.

The move again shows the president’s vulnerability and breaks promises he made after the election that he would try to build bridges with other parties and continue negotiations on major legislative projects.

“We cannot risk leaving France without a budget at a time when there are many risks,” Prime Minister Elizabeth Bourne told parliament.

She announced that the government would use Article 49.3 of the French Constitution, which allows the bill to be passed by decree, effectively bypassing parliamentary approval. Bourne justified the move by saying the opposition added hundreds of costly amendments during budget debate in the legislature.

The far-left Nupes coalition and the radical right-wing National Party “Obyedinenie” immediately reacted by announcing a vote of no confidence in the Born government. But their action is largely symbolic, since such an approach has little chance of passing through parliament.

“France cannot be governed by use [articolului] 49.3. For this reason, Nupes decided to express no confidence,” said Matilda Panot, one of the legislators of the Nupes group.

Social tension in France

Although a vote of no confidence is unlikely to pass, analysts believe that invoking this article of the French Constitution will only increase tensions between the opposition and the government as the executive prepares the ground for a hugely unpopular pension reform.

The move also comes amid protests and social unrest in France, with thousands of people taking to the streets on Tuesday to demand higher wages as workers in several industries went on general strike.

Several ministers in Bourne’s cabinet explained that the government had no choice but to resort to this radical decision, as adopting the budget with all the amendments added by the opposition would have increased the deficit by 8 billion euros.

The executive branch last invoked Article 49.3 in 2016, when the government of Socialist President Francois Hollande used it to pass controversial reforms to the Labor Code promoted by Macron, who was economy minister at the time.