Budget nightmare pushes French PM toward risky options to end stalemate – POLITICO

MPs returned from the holiday break with little more appetite to strike a deal, and the prospects of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s minority government persuading a majority to back a budget — one that includes politically sensitive measures to rein in France’s chronic deficit — have all but evaporated.

In a statement sent to reporters, Lecornu’s office said “continued sabotage” by France’s two largest opposition forces — the hard-left France Unbowed and the far-right National Rally — had made it impossible to pass a budget, even though these two parties…