What Leila spoke about.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, with regard to democracy at work, democracy at work at Amazon is like Santa Claus, it does not exist! In Poland, Magda, who is a member of the Health and Safety at Work Committee, was not allowed to join the Accident at Work Investigation Committee even though one of her colleagues had just died at work. Worse still, she was fired for spurious reasons, presumably after denouncing the poor working conditions in a warehouse that led to her death. In the United States, as we have just learned, six workers died in the collapse of their warehouse because Amazon refused to suspend operations, despite tornado alerts. Warehouse workers are prohibited from accessing their mobile phones during their working hours, so they could not receive the alerts. Jeff Bezos tramples on the law in the face of helpless workers by preventing them from organising because Amazon always puts profit first. So, ladies and gentlemen, even if it is Christmas soon, we must not give Amazon gifts. On the contrary, to use the slogan of a global campaign, ‘Let’s pay Amazon’, ‘Make Amazon pay’.

Mr President, ‘the child weighs 485 grams, so far because of the abortion law, I have to lie down. They will wait for him to die and otherwise I can – great – expect sepsis. That is the horror. My life is in danger and I have to wait. This is the message that Isabella, 30, a young Pole, sent to her mother. Isabella had to wait and she died. She died because doctors refused to give her an abortion even though they knew that the fetus she was carrying was ill-formed. Isabella died because of a new inhumane law that de facto prohibits abortion. And because of this law, tens of thousands of Poles resort to clandestine abortions, get abortion pills alone or have to go abroad, putting their lives and health at risk. This is where the far-right policies that inspire so many reactionaries and that inspire some presidential candidates in our country lead. This fight is vital. To condone this situation is to render non-assistance to anyone in danger. Colleagues, we must react! And as the Poles say: Not one more! Ani jednej więcej.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, Paul Dupeyroux died a year after doctors diagnosed him with asbestos cancer, mesothelioma. Paul grew up in Aulnay-sous-Bois, near Paris. Near his home there was a factory that crushed asbestos. A high chimney let out white dust, white dust that workers and residents have been breathing in for decades. For 19 years, Paul breathed in asbestos dust without knowing that he was poisoning himself. Asbestos-related diseases are insidious. They take years to develop after inhaling asbestos particles. Every year, more than 90 000 people die from asbestos in the European Union. Too often, victims are left alone and do not know that asbestos is at the root of their harm. To that end, I invite you to support the report carried by my colleague Nikolaj Villumsen and the colleagues from my delegation from unsubmissive France. Because, as this report states, it is necessary to facilitate the recognition and compensation of asbestos victims. Above all, asbestos must be completely removed from all existing buildings so that no Paul can die for breathing.

Madam President, seriously, ladies and gentlemen, is this still the case? We are still debating whether or not women have the right to dispose of their bodies? Are we still hearing MEPs – particularly on this side of the Chamber – opposing the right to abortion? Seriously? It is your friends in Texas who have tried to ban women from having an abortion after six weeks, even though they are not yet aware of their pregnancy. In Poland, your friends ban abortion even if the fetus is poorly formed and therefore force women to be living coffins. Are we still here? Don’t want an abortion? Well, don’t abort, but let women choose and decide. Everywhere, women oppose you with their voices: Chile, Mexico, San Marino. This morning, good news came to us from Texas, informing us that the anti-abortion law was suspended. Abortion is a fundamental right. Let women use it whenever they want, wherever they want, however they want. Our bodies, our choices, our rights.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, this morning, the President of the European Commission announced that 2022 will be the year of youth and, in this new school year, returning students will be delighted to learn about it, who are suffering from the social consequences of COVID-19, with huge rates of unemployment and poverty. While in France, President Macron felt it was time to cut housing subsidies for students and cut meals to 1 euro in universities, and while the cost of student living is skyrocketing, what young people need is not a whirlwind with beautiful posters with young people all over Europe, and then with the pretty logo of the European Union next door. No, what they need are concrete measures and there were none. Zero, walou, nothing, nada in Ursula von der Leyen’s speech this morning, nor were there any social measures, for that matter. There's an emergency. The solutions are at your fingertips: a minimum income for all from the age of 18, the construction of student housing, quality jobs. Let us declare social emergency at all levels. And I am counting on you, Commissioner Schmit, to get the message across to the European Commission.

Madam President, Commissioner, we must put an end to a fraudulent situation where platforms present themselves as mere intermediaries between a self-employed worker and a customer, when in reality they decide on tariffs, they decide on sanctions and they decide on working methods, all without fulfilling their obligations as employers. To remedy this, Parliament makes a proposal in this report. There needs to be a presumption of wage-earning for digital platform workers. A presumption of salaried employment linked to a reversal of the burden of proof. And the definition of the word presumption is unambiguous. From Latin praesumereIn advance, the presumption of wage-earning means that workers are considered employees of digital platforms from the first day of the employment relationship, without the need to go to court to assert their rights. This does not mean, of course, that all platform workers must be employees. There are cases where platforms are actually intermediaries, I am thinking for example of the Doctolib platform. In this case, it is up to the platform to prove that it has no subordinate relationship with the workers and they retain their status as self-employed. If we ask you to act, Commissioner, it is not to force self-employed workers to pay. If we urge you, it is first of all to remedy the extreme precariousness of VTC drivers and two-wheeled meal delivery workers. But it is also, and above all, for the whole world of work: If today we allow Uber to have workers under its command without assuming its responsibility as an employer, tomorrow it is all employees whose status will be threatened with replacement by a bogus self-employed person.

Mr President, while some have their heads in the moon, others have their hands in the sludge. Dear colleagues, Jeff Bezos is leaving his position as CEO of Amazon to focus on his passion: space tourism. So when he puts his clothes in his suitcase, I hope he will have a thought for the workers of his subcontractors in Bangladesh who make clothes for Amazon. These workers who were on strike on May 26; who were sent home without a cent during the lockdowns; who, in order to keep their job, are obliged to accept pay of less than EUR 80 per month for 12 hours a day, six days a week, in deplorable conditions. And all this while Bezos, sitting on a small cloud, makes billions to pay for his rocket. Colleagues, let’s force Amazon and all multinationals to come back to earth, to pay their workers a salary that allows them to live in dignity and for which they do not risk their lives. You will agree that this is not asking to land the moon.

Mr. Speaker, ladies and gentlemen, just a week ago, the thermometer in the village of Lytton, Canada, stood at 49.5°C. Not in the Sahara nor in the Middle East. No, no, 49.5°C in Canada! The cause of this extreme heat in a country also in the north is known to be climate change. Scientists have warned: what happened in Canada could very well happen again in Europe in the near future. With such a wake-up call, one would think that Europe would do its utmost to curb the runaway climate. And yet, with the Connecting Europe Facility, the European Union is preparing to finance gas projects in turn. Fossil gas can be just as dangerous to the climate as coal or oil. Rather than subsidising gas pipelines, Europe should fund wind turbines and solar panels, for the success of the green fork, for our future and to be able to enjoy the summer without burning.