Speeches

Mr President, the Minister representing the Presidency of the Council told us earlier that it was essential to increase farmers’ wages and simplify administrative burdens. But the European Union cannot constantly play firefighters. Today, we have farmers, most of whom are not employees. They are independent. They just want to be able to live decently from the fruits of their work and feed our countries, our peoples and our continent. You are constantly imposing increasingly demanding standards on them, standards that are not environmental standards, but are in reality standards under environmental pretexts, without any real impact on the environment – for the most part – or on food safety. Mr Weber is very proud to tell us that his Group, the EPP, voted 32 of the 34 texts of the Green Deal. But this is the tragedy of agriculture and farmers today. This explains their perfectly legitimate anger. The record of Mrs von der Leyen, who has just left this Chamber, is there. We are imposing taxes with our own resources, increasingly demanding standards, which are slowly making our farmers die, as we made our industry die yesterday. The European Union cannot be the most regulated, constrained and least protected economic area in the world. This model is not viable, it needs to be changed; we need to reduce taxes, burdens and constraints within the European market and be able to protect ourselves, like all major powers in the world.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this annual report is a reissue of the previous one, an endless litany of political attacks against your opponents, against those who refuse the European Commission's injunctions. As always, you take advantage of the rule of law and pretend to act on behalf of this vague concept, which remains variable in geometry, according to your interests and enemies of the moment. Nothing can be found about the scandalous actions of Donald Tusk's new Polish government. Not a word about the mass purge in the audiovisual, carried out manu militari without a court decision. Not a word about the attacks on the prerogatives of Polish President Duda, nor about the police operation inside the presidential palace itself. Not a word, finally, about all the other violations of the Constitution. Your silence and the Commission’s inaction proves that all the comedy played since 2016 against Poland, against Hungary, was in fact just a political pretext, a deception to harm conservative governments. What you cannot stand is that these countries are opposed to immigrationist and progressive policies decided in grey offices in Brussels. You are acting against democratic choices and the sovereignty of states. You do not forgive them for defending their people, their identity, their nation, that is, our civilisation.

Mr President, a few days ago, at the Munich conference, dictator Aliev said that he considered the border between his country and Armenia to be conditional. Clearly, it is preparing its next military offensives and invasions. There is, as we know, a hegemonic desire of Islamist Turkey and its Azerbaijani vassal, with clearly two objectives, to annex Armenian territory and annihilate the Armenian people. In the face of these repeated permanent violations of international law, what is the European Union doing? What is Ms von der Leyen doing, always quick to give lessons on human rights to the whole world, lessons on the rule of law to all Member States? Well, the European institutions are disgracing themselves by strengthening political, economic and trade ties with Azerbaijan, which von der Leyen herself calls a reliable partner. Brussels is also ridiculous in pretending to free itself from dependence on Russian gas and finally to buy gas that transits through Azerbaijan, but mainly comes from Russia. The honour of Europe and European nations will obviously be to conduct genuine civilizational diplomacy and deploy all means, including military, if necessary, to support our Christian brothers in Armenia and finally to hold Erdogan and his followers in respect.

Madam President, in the face of the anger of our farmers, Emmanuel Macron has trumpeted having interrupted the negotiations for the trade agreement with the Mercosur countries. Unlucky, the Commission has assured that this is not the case. It will continue to negotiate and even hopes to conclude before June. One more free trade agreement, which will contribute to the death of French and European agriculture, forever sacrificed from Brussels’ trade policy. For the Commission, the calculation is simple: We have to sell German cars, even if it means importing our fruits, our sugar and our meat. And no matter our food sovereignty, already threatened by the Green Deal, supported from the far left to the EPP. It doesn’t matter what the ecology is, it’s a pretext to add more and more standards and taxes that are crushing our businesses and our producers. No matter the quality of our imported food, the lack of mirror clauses, the constant unfair competition that drives our farmers to suicide. Macron is triple guilty: guilty of false promises to cornered farmers, guilty of overtransposition of European standards, which his elected representatives always support here, guilty of cowardice in the face of Brussels. France must go to hell on this issue. Do not import agricultural products that we ban at home.

Madam President, Prime Minister, less than a month ago the Spanish Presidency of the EU concluded with an agreement on the migration pact. While the invasion of Europe continues with 270 000 illegal immigrants arriving on our shores and more than one million asylum applications in 2023, this agreement is obviously unacceptable. The distribution of migrants remains the keystone of this disastrous project and constitutes an intolerable air call. And those who do not want it will be forced to pay a fine of €20,000 for each refused migrant. Tens of millions of people from Africa and the Middle East want to come, and Commissioner Johansson encourages them. It wants 4 and a half million immigrants a year to the European Union. She even states, with lamentable pride, that the agreement is, I quote: "a victory for migrants". If the Belgian Presidency really wants to protect our borders to help Greece, Italy and Spain, we obviously have to change course: systematically return illegal immigrants to their homes, force countries of departure, with diplomatic and economic pressure, to recover their nationals, grant asylum only for individual persecution, encourage the birth rate and be proud of our identity. We must not distribute migrants, we must just get them to leave massively and quickly. The future of our children and our civilisation is at stake.

Mr President, in recent days, the Spanish people have been on the streets protesting against the treason of their Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, a minority in the ballot box, who is openly violating the Constitution by allying himself with Catalan separatist criminals to stay in power. The Commission and Parliament keep talking about the rule of law in Poland, Hungary and everywhere else in the world, inventing threats, chaining Moscow trials against defendants who are often convicted in advance. But this time, in Spain, we are witnessing a genuine coup d’état, a marked violation of the Constitution in defiance of a court decision that is founded in law. We are witnessing the dismemberment of a nation and the amnesty of criminals for lowly political reasons. And Brussels says nothing. The left and the macronists are silent, they even openly support this wrongdoing. Why? Well, because it is the socialists who are manoeuvring, of course. Sánchez and his government are illegitimate, even illegal, by letting the Commission do it, and our Parliament is disgraced. In its usual logic, Brussels should rush to impose sanctions, and our Chamber should immediately draw up a resolution. And there, absolutely nothing! This double standard shows how the usual rule of law discourse is nothing more than a shabby comedy by the left to harm its political adversaries.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, there is still a debate on Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, with the same rhetoric, the same imaginary threats to the rule of law, to activist journalists and to LGBT activists. Nothing has ever been demonstrated, as I was able to see when I visited Budapest two years ago as part of an official mission of our Parliament. And there is obviously nothing new. So what, this time, is the grievance of the left and the macronists? Hungary has even agreed to some of the reforms you were asking for, but that still does not suit you. You continue to whine, pretending to act in the name of justice and equality. Your relentless persecutions and shameful maneuvers actually serve only one purpose: punish the Hungarian people, guilty of being attached to their identity and traditions, guilty also of refusing your dictates on multiculturalism, on the unlimited reception of migrants, on gender ideology even in schools. You show your true face. Nothing will ever satisfy you because you are motivated by the ideology and detestation of our true values of civilization. Put an end to this circus and let the Commission finally pay the money it owes to Hungary.

Madam President, if you want a Europe that has the geopolitics of its civilization and its interests, start by stopping your hollow speeches, your moral lessons to the whole Earth, your innumerable haughty and sufficient resolutions that make us alienate the rest of the world. Stop humiliating us to those who despise or threaten us, because today the list is endless, your servility towards Biden, who serves American interests and does not hesitate to wage a trade war against us, your cowardice towards Erdoğan’s Turkey, which threatens Greece, occupies Cyprus and agitates Islamism on our soil, your hypocrisy and complacency with Azerbaijan, a genuine dictatorship that sells us Russian gas while carrying out the ethnic cleansing of Armenians, our brothers in civilization, your aggressiveness towards countries such as Tunisia or Egypt, while we have a common interest in controlling migratory flows from the South to the North, your timidity towards China and the unfair competition it has led us for years, your financial largesse and your blindness towards an Islamism that assumes the desire to destroy our civilization. Let us finally think of ourselves, in a world that is becoming multipolar and dangerous again. Let us define ourselves otherwise than by false, abstract, disembodied or tearful values, far from what is specifically the greatness of European civilization.

Mr President, Hamas jihadists have attacked Israel at horrific heights: massacre of young people in a festival, rape and torture, kidnapping of families and murder of children. However, some in France, and right here in this Chamber, refuse to say that Hamas is a terrorist movement. They must be understood: Hamas supporters are their voters, the millions of unassimilated, unassimilable immigrants who hate Israel just as much as our European civilisation. Ms von der Leyen decided to triple European aid to Gaza, while everyone knew that this funding always ended up, at least in part, in the pockets of Hamas. Open your eyes! Shotgun, knife or truck attacks in Israel, Arras, Brussels, Stockholm or Paris are only the expression of a permanent and global jihad, sometimes barbaric, such as that of Hamas or Daesh, and sometimes in costume, such as that of the Muslim Brotherhood. This jihad, it has a thousand pretexts for its deadly fight, but only one ideology: make war on everything that is not Islam and must be subject to it. We have no choice: We must wage and win the war against Islamism, ban the Muslim Brotherhood, expel Islamists and their families, control speech in mosques and stop paying millions to those who want to destroy our civilisation and kill our peoples.

Madam President, a few days ago, Azerbaijan invaded Armenia, annexing Nagorno-Karabakh and forcing 100,000 Armenian refugees to flee today from theft, rape, looting and death. Azerbaijan, which, as always, is behaving in the armed arms of Turkey. Turkey, which, after the genocide of 1915, tirelessly pursues its desire to build a great Ottoman Muslim empire with the key to the outright eradication of the Armenian nation and people. But what a shame! What a shame to see Mrs von der Leyen rushing to Baku, pacting with dictator Aliyev and claiming that she is a reliable partner. And what hypocrisy to pretend to want to get rid of dependence on Russian gas because Russia has invaded Ukraine, of course, and at the same time, buy gas from Azerbaijan that has just invaded Armenia. It is time to put an end to collusion and connivance with Erdogan and Aliyev and to end trade relations with Azerbaijan. We have a duty of solidarity with Armenia, the first Christian nation in history. We have a historical bond that unites us. The Armenians, the Armenian people need our friendship, our support and our European solidarity.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, like other economic areas in the world, the European Union is affected by inflation and the consequences of the war in Ukraine. But while any household would simply think of cutting spending, the Commission has a magic formula: ask for more and more money from the Member States, i.e. from European taxpayers and in particular from France, since France is one of the net contributors to the EU budget. The Commission is once again showing us that it is spending not counting other people's money, our money. No less than €65 billion, including €13 billion for immigration. If at least this money was used to expel the illegals or to mount a naval operation to prevent the invasion of Lampedusa and our coasts. But we know that it will actually be squandered to make it easier for millions of fake asylum seekers to come. To inflate its budget, the Commission also relies on own resources. Clearly: additional taxes and duties which are, as always of course, passed on to the consumer at the end. We will thus add a European layer to the tax millefeuille that is already robbing the French: percentage on the income of the Member States, levy of part of the VAT, tax on plastic packaging, carbon border mechanism, temporary tax – but in reality will become definitive – on the profits of companies. In short, the European Union works like Macron’s France: more and more taxes, more and more Brussels centralism... (The President withdrew the floor to the speaker)

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the migration agreement between the European Union and Tunisia is promising, and President Saïed deserves our support. The Maghreb countries are at the forefront of immigration, which is now precipitating an assault on Europe. They too suffer from the poverty and crime brought on by the ever-increasing number of migrants. More than 100 000 in Italy alone since the beginning of the year, several million people have come all over Europe since the 2015 crisis. As such, the Commission's refusal to work with Libya, where migrants and smugglers' mafias are concentrated, sometimes aided by NGOs that make sea taxis, is absolutely culpable. Let us help the Maghreb countries to defend their borders because they also protect ours. However, let us not forget that they are sometimes countries of departure themselves. We will have to make sure that these countries control their own immigration and enforce, if necessary, with sanction clauses. Moreover, the systematic expulsion of illegal migrants who are false asylum seekers remains the best solution to ensure control of our borders. Migrants should be discouraged from coming by showing them that they will not be able to stay. We are just at the beginning of an absolutely spectacular mass immigration to Europe. Let us now give ourselves the means, all the means, to prevent Europe from becoming Africa.

Mr President, last year, and for the first time in 40 years, the French wondered whether they could heat up in winter. This was the consequence of Emmanuel Macron’s ideological choice to sacrifice nuclear power and close the Fessenheim power plant. Giving up clean, inexpensive and efficient energy in favour of intermittent, expensive energy, which makes us dependent on China and requires the activation of coal-fired power plants. Germany, the biggest polluter in Europe, knows something about this. In 2021, it emitted eight times more CO2 than France for electricity 50% more expensive. With this text, you pursue this hypocritical and suicidal logic. You want to subsidise solar and wind without giving anything to nuclear power. Macron, despite what he claims today, was too cowardly to engage in a real standoff and defend our interests. Only one choice is needed: to ensure that our people have abundant, low-cost, decarbonised energy to support our industry, to support the purchasing power of households and to secure the future of our children. We need an ambitious plan to build new generation nuclear power plants across Europe, along the lines of the Messmer plan that gave France its energy sovereignty a few decades ago.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, endless taxation at ever heavier rates is the only policy the left seems capable of, for which wealth starts from the middle class. Overtaxing does not reduce inequality, but places an unreasonable burden on those who pay taxes without making those who do not pay wealthier. Moreover, this does not increase the State’s resources either. The stifling taxation pushes those who can to leave and invest elsewhere. It crushes those who remain to the point that they wonder if working hard is really worth it. Because ease rarely falls from the sky. It is the fruit of hard work, foresight and intelligent choices. The over-taxation of certain social categories is becoming more and more a racket to compensate in reality for the financial waste of the State and to pay the undue allowances of those, often also from a migrant background, who refuse to work or do not have the prospect of working. This is particularly true of inheritance tax. While throughout one’s life, one has paid endlessly, is subject to innumerable taxes and spared the best of his ability, the State at the time of death retaxes heavily, shamefully, this inheritance intended for the heirs. This is a real spoliation. Instead of taxing more and more, let's reduce spending and waste. Whether the State concentrates on its sovereign tasks, whether it does not assume them or not.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, 8.4 million migrants have applied for asylum in the European Union since 2014. This is almost the equivalent of Austria as a whole. And they will continue to come by the millions as long as you continue to welcome them and want to distribute them. It is your fault that some people die at sea, taking all the risks, motivated by your laxity, your blindness, your misguided humanitarianism. You want to organise their arrival, set up sea taxis, play into the hands of the mafias and human traffickers who are enriched by this illegal and abject trade. They're not refugees. They do not flee persecution. They don't run from war. They are not eligible for asylum. They come to benefit from our allowances, our unlimited generosity. They bring with them in exchange poverty always, crime often, and sometimes even terrorism. It will be necessary to choose: either your morality or our identity. The reception of millions of young men who will never assimilate, as shown by the ethnic riots that have ravaged France in recent days, or the safety of our peoples and our children. Like all the defenders of our civilisation who reject your crazy politics, I have made my choice. You have made your own and history will judge you.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in order to attract investment to Europe, it is necessary to stop being the most imposed, the most regulated and, at the same time, the least protected economic area in the world. We must not only attract foreign capital, we must first ensure that European economic actors invest in our continent instead of fleeing it. So stop regulation, the endless stacking of standards that the rest of the world does not meet at all. Put an end to the administrative and tax overbidding, which makes entrepreneurs live a hell and often pushes for relocation. Protect our market from unfair competition, which is a direct consequence of free trade agreements. Stop the punitive pseudo-ecology, whose objectives are often unattainable, and which totally asphyxiates our economy. Finally, boosting investment in Europe requires abundant and affordable energy, i.e. making the assumed choice of nuclear power. But these measures to reindustrialise and to ensure our prosperity and therefore our sovereignty are unfortunately unacceptable for a good part of this House, from the real left to the false right. Indeed, they have only one obsession: control everything, regulate everything, tax everything and ultimately ruin everything.

Mr President, it has been fifty years since Turkey invaded Cyprus. After the conquest by brutality came that, more durable, by demography. Ankara has sent tens of thousands of Turks to populate the northern half of the island, administered by a puppet government, which is not recognised by anyone. This does not prevent Sultan Erdoğan from constantly provoking, regularly calling for the partition of Cyprus into two states. It is the same Erdoğan who multiplies illegal drilling in Cypriot territorial waters, and who continues to violate Greek airspace. Erdoğan, widely re-elected two weeks ago, close to the Muslim Brotherhood, which has re-Islamized its population and supports Islamists on our soil, has converted the Hagia Sophia Basilica into a mosque. He urges the Turks in Europe to "make five children to accelerate the great replacement of our continent". Erdoğan extorts billions of euros from us and pushes hundreds of thousands of migrants towards the Greek border and islands. Mr President, because of all these threats and insults, because of the suffering of your people and the theft of your land, it is time to put a definitive, irreversible end to the process of Turkey’s accession to the European Union.

Madam President, the migratory chaos has been uninterrupted since 2015. Europe and Italy on the frontline are now at risk of submersion. Courageously, Giorgia Meloni is lucid and faces, while only a few months ago Emmanuel Macron was rushing to welcome the Ocean Viking and its illegal immigrants to Toulon. Gérald Darmanin, who dares to do anything, now claims to teach Italy a lesson when he allows himself to be humiliated by a micro-country like the Comoros. Some here see immigration as inevitable or even an opportunity. But the vast majority of the 450 million Europeans demand that their identity and security are finally defended. Delaying migration flows and reversing the trend is possible. This requires real political will and, finally, firmness. We know the solutions: setting up and funding centres outside Europe for asylum seekers, dismantling smugglers’ mafias and monitoring NGOs, systematically expelling all illegal immigrants without allowing them to be regularised and forcing their country of origin to recover them. Some will of course say that these countries will never accept, but we can force them to do so diplomatically and economically. Let us impose our conditions instead of always submitting to theirs. Europe as a whole will have to stand firm if it is to survive.

Mr President, what a failure, what a humiliation for Emmanuel Macron, who managed the tour de force to get nothing from Beijing and, at the same time, to offend our closest allies. By going to China to speak on behalf of Europe, without a Council mandate, speaking too much, as usual, asserting positions contrary to those of several of our friends and allies, Emmanuel Macron once again lowered France and weakened the European cartel. This is all the more shameful as there was no political courage there. He went to tell the Chinese exactly what they wanted to hear. Macron claimed not to be Washington's follower: He was finally submissive to Beijing. And yet, if Europeans have a common interest in China, it is to treat it for what it is: a trading partner, of course, but not always loyal – far from it – and, above all, a systemic rival, on whom, of course, our dependence must be limited. China and the United States protect their interests. We too, French and Europeans, have some in this region of the globe. It is time to stop naivety and weakness in the face of those who abuse it, who are so happy and beneficiaries of our docility.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you do every year, you bring us the endless litany of your grievances against democratically elected governments. Poland and Hungary are once again your targets, always in the name of a rule of law with variable geometry. Your permanent simagrées do not actually deceive anyone. These manoeuvres and big words have only one purpose: Punish those who don't think like you. These countries have the wrong, in your eyes anyway, to protect their people and their culture. They are wrong not to submit to your political and moral dictates. They have the wrong to reject your forced diversity, your crazy "immigrationism," your incessant LGBT propaganda, your authoritarian bureaucratic centralism, which are destroying our nations and civilization. You want to impose your leftist delusions on free peoples, drag them into impoverishment, weakening and decadence. Election after election, people wake up. What will be your next targets? Italy? Sweden? Maybe Spain? So stop giving moral lessons, as corruption splatters your ranks, while the Commission appears under influence, including from Islamist countries or factions. Finally, trust democracy and let the people decide for themselves.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as the United Kingdom finally announces firm measures to combat illegal immigration, while Italy anticipates a real invasion and Europe should do everything to protect its borders, while NGOs are complicit in human trafficking, while your procrastination, laxity and cowardice are responsible for the deaths at sea, you want to go even further, even further. The same causes producing the same effects, the same tearful words of openness and welcome will obviously push more and more migrants to leave and sometimes die at sea. If you had a little humanity, true humanity, you would obviously deter them from leaving. So stop showing them that there would be a European Eldorado that does not exist. Stop encouraging them to come to Europe at the risk of their lives. You push them into the clutches of the smugglers’ mafias, who commit the worst atrocities on them. You organize their uprooting, away from their family and their land. True humanity is, of course, the firmness of migration. Your laxity is shameful and guilty.

Madam President, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, last Friday in Washington, Ursula von der Leyen submitted to Joe Biden. Without a mandate from the Council, the President of the European Commission announced our full alignment with US interests. She sacrificed our auto industry and promised an agreement on rare earth minerals. It is thus part, without any control, of a dangerous US strategy of tensions with China. Of course, we are committed to our historic friendship with the United States and, of course, with NATO as a defensive alliance. But Europe’s vital, commercial and geopolitical interests are obviously not indistinguishable from those of Washington. The war on our borders in Ukraine, the food and energy security of our countries, our economic competitiveness must remain our only concerns. Mrs von der Leyen seems to be pursuing a personal agenda. She is promising to become NATO Secretary General in 2024. But in a world that is more uncertain than ever, Europe and its nations must act decisively to return to the path of power that alone can guarantee independence. The European Council must therefore urgently take back its hand, put Ursula von der Leyen in her place and defend the interests of our continent first.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for years we have allowed the whole world to benefit from our subsidies in the name of combating global warming. Foreign companies have enriched themselves with our money. Today, the US supports its electric car industry, exclusively subsidises US companies and therefore discards ours. It is an act of trade war. Et vous découvrez, avec une candeur stupéfiante, que tous les pays du monde défendent d’abord leurs intérêts! China is massively subsidising its economy – and has been cheating for decades. The United States protects itself, has no complexities, and – it must be said – it is absolutely right. So, let's stop begging Joe Biden for a few more gestures. We must respond and finally stop being the best students of globalised free trade. Facilitating State aid by subsidising our economy is a first step, but obviously much more needs to be done: wherever possible, let us put in place a genuine local, national and European preference in public procurement. Let's encourage tax breaks to improve our competitiveness. Finally, let us stop signing free trade agreements with the whole world. It killed our industry yesterday, it will kill our agriculture tomorrow. It is time for the European Union to protect us instead of organising our collective impotence.

Dear colleague, you only consider official migrants. In fact, in a country like France alone, we have 400 000 legal entries per year, when we count residence permits, plus unaccompanied minors, plus asylum seekers, the vast majority of whom do not meet the criteria for obtaining the right to asylum. And we have this phenomenon in the 27 countries of the European Union, which obviously leads to millions and millions of migrants arriving, either legally or illegally, but with all of them ultimately remaining, because very few are deported, even when they have entered or remain illegally or are denied the right to asylum. So today we are facing a real flood. We must put an end to this submergence. It is not a service to these populations, who come mainly from sub-Saharan Africa and the Maghreb, to welcome them. They are uprooted, they prevent the development of these countries. Genuinely humane, fair and responsible politics means doing everything possible to ensure that they remain in their country of origin, instead of causing major disturbances, both in terms of identity and security, economic and social issues in Europe.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, by 2050 Africans will be 2.5 billion and 52% of their youth have the ambition to come to Europe. More than 7 million have applied for asylum since 2014, the equivalent of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in France or Bulgaria as a whole. Each manifestation of weakness pushes them to try their luck, to leave their country and their roots to throw themselves into the clutches of the smugglers' mafias, and, for some, to die at sea. They know that, if they come to us, you will welcome them, in the name of your good feelings, but in defiance of the will of our peoples. You are thus the artisans of the destruction of our civilization. By welcoming Africa and the Middle East, we are not helping them, we are only becoming Africa and the Middle East ourselves. The only sustainable and humane solution is to deter them from leaving, prevent them from entering and systematically deport them if they arrive. We must, of course, finance the protections erected, for example by Greece, Hungary and Bulgaria at our external borders. We must punish the countries of departure that do not cooperate and promote the development of those who control their flow, without infantilizing them or imposing our European schemes on them. And, instead of distributing migrants, we must above all send them home. (The speaker agreed to reply to a blue card intervention)