Speeches

Madam President, would it be possible to have a very short break to analyse the votes before moving on to the final vote? Thank you. It is part of the rules of procedure, but I know that the far right, the rules of procedure, you have nothing to do with it. (The Chair responded to the request)

Madam President, Mrs von der Leyen, it has already been a year since you were re-elected head of the European Commission. A year too long, during which you have done irreparable damage. Frankly, today, your speech is not enough to mask reality. Yes, you have been complicit in the genocide of the Palestinian people by not taking any real sanctions so far. And your announcements today do not change anything, because, in the face of genocide, there can be no half-measure. Yes, you have capitulated to Trump's trade blackmail and signed, with Mercosur, the worst, most harmful free trade agreement that will be a disaster for our farmers. Yes, you persisted with fiscal austerity, which takes the poor to give to the rich, and multiplied ecological renunciations. And you want it to last another four years? Mrs von der Leyen, at the end of this year, yes, you must leave, and quickly, with your whole Commission. It is not just our group that is asking for it, but 60% of MEPs, 60% of European citizens. And since you refuse, we will table a motion of censure against you to put an end to your policy of social breakdown and your culpable inaction in the genocide in Gaza. We censor you...

Madam President, 700 days, it took you 700 days of genocide in Gaza before there was finally a resolution in the European Parliament. For 700 days, most of the groups here refused each of our demands and instead turned a blind eye to the worst humanitarian carnage our century has seen. And it is only thanks to the abnegation of our left-wing group, which has never given up anything for the Palestinian people, that Parliament finally takes up the issue. It was therefore necessary to wait for the UN to declare a state of famine and denounce Netanyahu's genocidal rhetoric, for Israeli bombs to target humanitarian distributions, for more than 60,000 civilians, including 30,000 children, to be cowardly murdered, for more than 200 journalists to be killed, for Benjamin Netanyahu to extend his genocidal project to the West Bank so that this Parliament could finally seize on the genocide in Gaza. But let's be clear: We will not be satisfied with vague condemnations. We want action. Mrs Kallas, what are you waiting for to impose a strict embargo on the shipment of weapons, when countries such as France have delivered a record number? What are you waiting for to suspend the Association Agreement between the European Union and Israel, when your own Commission has acknowledged that human rights are being violated? What are you also waiting for to offer diplomatic protection to the Freedom Flotilla, which was attacked last night by drone, as it is on its way to break the humanitarian embargo in Gaza? I mean, here, solemnly, that these hundreds of crew members demonstrate that they have 1,000 times more courage than you, Mrs Kallas, and that you, the European leaders. The Palestinians will not be able to wait another 700 days of genocide, simply because they will no longer be there to be saved. They no longer have shelters to protect themselves from bombs, no hospitals to save their wounded, no more bread to feed themselves, no more journalists to report their martyrdom, no more land to bury their remains and no more tears to weep for them. They don't have anything anymore. But you, Mrs Kallas, you European leaders, you who have all this, you lose something they still have, you lose your morality and your humanity. History is yours. Act, otherwise it will be too late.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, more than EUR 4 million: this is what the National Gathering would have embezzled in public money, i.e. the taxes of Europeans; our taxes. Only a few days after the convictions of several former MEPs of the party - including its leader, Marine Le Pen - for misappropriation of public funds, they are already reoffending. Moreover, I do not know if you noticed: There is absolutely no National Rally or far-right member present for this debate – certainly because they have something to hide. The facts complained of are simply overwhelming. More than €4 million of public money squandered to finance friends by circumventing tender rules or overcharging services. And these friends are not just anyone: They are fascist scoundrels of the "GUD Connection", an ultra-violent racist group, with which Mr. Bardella had promised to cut the bridges. So, to those far-right MPs who usually talk about “assisted” by referring to foreign people: Who are the real helpers? Immigrant workers who earn the SMIC and pay taxes or members of the National Assembly who consider public money as their pocket money?’ To use an expression that they usually like, I suggest one thing: zero tolerance against those who sting in crates.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, more than EUR 4 million: this is what the National Gathering would have embezzled in public money, i.e. the taxes of Europeans; our taxes. Only a few days after the convictions of several former MEPs of the party - including its leader, Marine Le Pen - for misappropriation of public funds, they are already reoffending. Moreover, I do not know if you noticed: There is absolutely no National Rally or far-right member present for this debate – certainly because they have something to hide. The facts complained of are simply overwhelming. More than €4 million of public money squandered to finance friends by circumventing tender rules or overcharging services. And these friends are not just anyone: They are fascist scoundrels of the "GUD Connection", an ultra-violent racist group, with which Mr. Bardella had promised to cut the bridges. So, to those far-right MPs who usually talk about “assisted” by referring to foreign people: Who are the real helpers? Immigrant workers who earn the SMIC and pay taxes or members of the National Assembly who consider public money as their pocket money?’ To use an expression that they usually like, I suggest one thing: zero tolerance against those who sting in crates.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Viktor Orbán has tried to ban the Pride March in Hungary; We made it the largest Budapest has ever known! Despite threats of fines and imprisonment, despite far-right protests, which have been allowed, despite facial recognition devices along the way, despite spurious arguments that describe homosexuality as ‘unnatural’, more than 200,000 people marched with pride, joy, to claim their belonging to or support for the LGBT community. Among them, many members of my group, who showed solidarity, when Mrs von der Leyen - and I regret it - woke up just two days before the pride to regret its ban, without ever having used the levers against Orbán’s authoritarianism. However, Viktor Orbán is not at his trial against the rule of law. I hear some people in France say that the extreme right, ‘we have never tried’. So see the result in Orbán's Hungary, which Bardella and Le Pen take as an example: corruption to serve friends, NGOs and associations threatened with closure, press freedom gone missing, workers' rights ransacked, LGBTQIA+ people persecuted. This is the reality of the rule of the far right; we can’t say we didn’t know! For as long as it takes, I will say here on this rostrum that being queer has never been a danger to anyone. The authoritarianism and violence of the far right, yes. For as long as it takes, I will proudly carry this flag: that of the LGBT community. We will proudly wear it here, in Parliament and all over Europe!

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Viktor Orbán has tried to ban the Pride March in Hungary; We made it the largest Budapest has ever known! Despite threats of fines and imprisonment, despite far-right protests, which have been allowed, despite facial recognition devices along the way, despite spurious arguments that describe homosexuality as ‘unnatural’, more than 200,000 people marched with pride, joy, to claim their belonging to or support for the LGBT community. Among them, many members of my group, who showed solidarity, when Mrs von der Leyen - and I regret it - woke up just two days before the pride to regret its ban, without ever having used the levers against Orbán’s authoritarianism. However, Viktor Orbán is not at his trial against the rule of law. I hear some people in France say that the extreme right, ‘we have never tried’. So see the result in Orbán's Hungary, which Bardella and Le Pen take as an example: corruption to serve friends, NGOs and associations threatened with closure, press freedom gone missing, workers' rights ransacked, LGBTQIA+ people persecuted. This is the reality of the rule of the far right; we can’t say we didn’t know! For as long as it takes, I will say here on this rostrum that being queer has never been a danger to anyone. The authoritarianism and violence of the far right, yes. For as long as it takes, I will proudly carry this flag: that of the LGBT community. We will proudly wear it here, in Parliament and all over Europe!

Madam President, Mrs von der Leyen, Mr Costa, you are talking about peace and security, but you do not have a single word today about the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip. Mrs von der Leyen, I quote ‘the report is very clear, Israel has violated Article 2 of the Association Agreement between the European Union and Israel.’ It is not I who say it, but your High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas. It took 20 months of systematic destruction of the Gaza Strip, indiscriminate bombing, amputated children, starving populations to come to this obvious conclusion: Israel violates international and European law. However, what conclusion do you draw from this? The immediate and unconditional suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement? No, nothing. Because, above all, the objective, I quote, ‘would be not to punish Israel’. Don't punish? But then, what do you call the more than 57,000 civilians who were killed? Targeted food distributions? Survivors who live in the midst of ruins and corpses, and who must choose between starving to death and dying under bombs? Isn’t that a punishment for those 2 million Gazans? If we don't punish the Israeli government now, when it commits genocide, then when? You were not afraid to punish Putin’s Russia by rightly adopting 17 packages of sanctions. But not a single sanction has been taken against Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu. Worse: it can fly quietly over French airspace without Emmanuel Macron intercepting and arresting it, as required by the international arrest warrant. Mrs von der Leyen, genocide is not stopped with words or gesticulations. We arrest him with deeds. The EU is Israel’s largest trading partner. We can't trade with a genocidal man anymore. By agreeing to continue cooperation with Israel, you are directly financing and legitimizing the ongoing mass killings in the Gaza Strip. Ms von der Leyen, by your inaction you are making yourself a little more complicit in the genocide every day and you are leaving an indelible mark on the history of our continent. Every day, every hour counts. Finally, do what is your duty: Take action.

Madam President, Mrs Kallas, genocide, genocide, genocide. I repeat this voluntarily because, despite 18 months of massacres in Gaza, you still deliberately refuse to use this term, Mrs Kallas. 18 months of killings and more than 55,000 deaths, 18 months of destruction including 90% of schools, 18 months of famine for 2 million civilians, 18 months that the Israeli government methodically and deliberately organizes the genocide of the Palestinian people. It was not until our left-wing group made use of its opportunity to hold a debate that the word genocide and the need for sanctions appeared for the first time on the official agenda of our European Parliament. In short, we are doing what you, Mrs Kallas, and you European leaders, who do not even deign to come for this debate, have refused to do so far: qualify the unspeakable to act, punish, protect and get out of your complicity. Because yes, you are complicit, Mrs Kallas, when you remain silent in the face of the humanitarian blockade imposed by Israel, which leaves for the only dream the children of Gaza to have a simple loaf of bread. This shameful blockade that a member of my group, Rima Hassan, whose courage I want to salute here, tried to circumvent with the Freedom Flotilla. Their arrest in international waters was illegal, their conditions of detention unworthy. But the European authorities, and in particular you, Mrs Kallas, have not had a word to call for their release. Providing humanitarian aid should never be a crime. The only ones who must be behind bars are those prosecuted by the International Criminal Court, foremost among them Benjamin Netanyahu. Mrs Kallas, the European Union and European leaders are directly complicit in the genocide. Complicit when you let Benjamin Netanyahu tread European soil without stopping him, complicit when you pour millions of euros into the Israeli military-industrial complex through the Horizon research program, complicit when European states continue to trade and deliver weapons to a genocidal army. Words are no longer enough, we need action. I have a question for you, ladies and gentlemen. Do you know how our Parliament and the European Union have rightly adopted a package of sanctions against Russia: Seventeen, seventeen! What about Israel organizing a genocide? Zero! It is this double standard that weakens the entire architecture of international law and is unbearable. Europe's unconditional support for Israel's far right must stop. This should have been done a long time ago. But you have a new opportunity on 23 June at the Council of Foreign Ministers, deciding to suspend the Association Agreement between the European Union and Israel. And let me warn you, Mrs Kallas, you can no longer procrastinate by proposing to reconsider, perhaps in the more or less near future. Because humanitarian distributions that are targeted by gunfire, it's not in the future, it's now. Because the Palestinians, who have no other horizon but to starve or die from a bullet, it's not in a future, it's now. Because the survival of the Palestinian people is at stake now. Everything must be done to bring down Benjamin Netanyahu's government. We need a total arms embargo and massive economic and trade sanctions against Israel. It is not only our group that is asking for it, often alone, I must say, in this Chamber, but it is also hundreds of thousands of people who, from Rome to The Hague, from Paris to Brussels, are mobilising all over Europe and who are doing much more than you European leaders in two years against genocide. Then Mrs. Kallas, finally, since the cries of pain of the Palestinians are indifferent to you, perhaps their poems will find thanks to your heart so that finally you get out of inaction. Listen to this Palestinian poet Salem Joubran: If a child was murdered and his killers threw his body into the mud, would you be angry? What would you say? I am a son of Palestine, I die every year, I am murdered every day, every hour. Express yourself: What caused your sudden indifference? What, then? Nothing to say?

Madam President, Commissioner: Finally! Finally, you acknowledge the need to review the Association Agreement with Israel. I must say here, it is first and foremost a victory of the mobilisations all over Europe that have maintained the pressure on the European Union. But how long did it take to wait? A year and a half of bombing, night and day, famine used as a weapon of war, more than 53,000 dead including 16,000 children. Netanyahu began the final phase of the genocide in Gaza. I repeat it here because, obviously, in this forum, some people find it difficult to describe what is happening in Gaza: Yes, it is genocide and it must be denounced as such! What else do you call the 14,000 Palestinian babies who could die in the next 48 hours if Israel continues to block humanitarian aid? Millions of Palestinians are bidding farewell to the world, and you European leaders, you at the European Commission, are still procrastinating over the use of the word 'genocide'. You just launch an investigation into whether, perhaps, Israel is violating human rights – as if there are still doubts. You let Benjamin Netanyahu parade on European territory without stopping him. You watch without flinching the European governments send him weapons. With all due respect to you, Commissioner, the Commission is sending the Commissioner for Intergenerational Equity, Youth, Culture and Sport to represent it in this crucial debate on Gaza. I'm sorry, but who are you kidding? Ursula von der Layen was not available? Unless she's too busy shaking hands with Benjamin Netanyahu. In the face of the war in Ukraine, you did not hesitate to take sanctions against Russia. What is true for Ukrainians would not be true for Gaza? Is the life of the Palestinians worthless? What the hell are you waiting for to take real sanctions against Benjamin Netanyahu? That there is no longer a single Palestinian living in Gaza? Words don't stop a massacre. We need action. History will judge you, because when Gaza is wiped off the map, it will be too late to act.

Madam President, dear friends and colleagues of the extreme right, it is true that last week the Court of Justice of the European Union confirmed that the President of the European Commission had lied in the Pfizergate case. There is, I quote, "no plausible explanation" for the disappearance of the texts sent to the CEO of Pfizer. Citizens have the right to know how billions of euros of public money were negotiated by text message, why no trace exists, who has accepted that the price of doses increases by 25% to further increase the profits of the big pharmaceutical companies. We have every right to know. Citizens are also entitled to know that the hypocrisy of the extreme right is total, it which, on the same day, voted against the independent ethical authority, whose objective is precisely to tackle the ethical scandals within the European institutions. You see, the difference between you on the far right and us on the left is that we are fighting corruption and opacity in all the institutions, the Commission and the European Parliament – but obviously you have things to hide.

Mr President, Commissioner, with the trade war initiated by Donald Trump, we are experiencing a historic economic upheaval. Faced with this, what do you propose? First, never raise your voice in the face of an American president who multiplies violations of international law. Secondly, to give in to blackmail - to his blackmail - by buying 50 billion more American products, so that he sells us the shovel with which we dig our own grave. Thirdly, to speed up the signing of new trade agreements, starting with the United States, but also with Mercosur, India, Thailand, Australia, and so on. Anyway, we just got a slap in the face and you're holding out the other cheek. Translation: Free trade is dead, long live free trade! Let's go, let's make ourselves even more dependent on the rest of the world, as if we had learned nothing from this crisis. Above all, let's sacrifice the same ones a little more: workers, workers in the industries you are throwing away, Commissioner. More than ever, the impasse of free trade and capitalist globalization is obvious. Let's get out of this deadly system.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, who in this room can say that the priority today is to break the only texts on social and ecological progress that were voted on in the previous term? Who in this Chamber can seriously think that the most important thing today is to throw in the trash regulations that prevent multinationals from massacring people and the planet? To protect the environment, to improve people’s lives, this is never the time. You always have to wait, postpone, "we'll see when we have time". But when it comes to deregulating, the EPP is the great lord: Especially, fast, fast, fast! There is an urgency to give gifts to big companies, more and more. You have to get started right away, right away, in an urgent procedure!" – you who usually like the European Commission's evaluation procedures so much to waste time. The reality is that you did not have this idea on your own, dear friends of the EPP. The big companies that want to continue to make profits from the exploitation of workers and nature, they are the ones who suggested it, and it is actually at the request of their lobbyists that you are making this request for an urgent procedure today. This is a real scandal! Furthermore, Mr Tobé, you are talking about forecasts for large companies, but this text was adopted at the end of the previous term of office. What are we going to do during this mandate, here, all the Members of the European Parliament? Are we going to unravel the texts that have been adopted by our European Parliament? What is the point of sitting here, then, if it is to undo what has just been adopted? Today I would like you to think of all the victims of the crimes of multinationals and tell them face to face that their fate is not urgent. Go say, dear right-wing and far-right MEPs who are about to vote on this urgent procedure, go tell the 100,000 people expropriated by Total in Uganda and Tanzania that there is no urgent need for redress. Tell the families of the 6,500 people who died at the World Cup in Qatar that making those responsible pay is not urgent. Tell the Uyghur slaves exploited by Shein that stopping their torture is not urgent. Tell the relatives of the 1,135 employees who died in the rubble of Rana Plaza that access to justice is not urgent. So yes, this text on due diligence in the Omnibus package is not the most revolutionary, but it has the merit of existing. We have ripped it off after five years of fighting lobbyists and we are proud that the left, united in this Chamber, has managed to defend it and get it to vote, and finally put an end to the impunity of multinationals. The cynicism of those who propose this urgent procedure to establish the total impunity of the big bosses who have blood on their hands is a shame, and it makes you directly complicit. So, colleagues, it is up to you to take responsibility. Do not allow this disgraceful step backwards and defend this essential human rights acquis!

Madam President, Mrs von der Leyen, Mr Costa, I shall begin with a rather simple question: Ms von der Leyen, how much longer are you going to let Donald Trump dictate his law on US-EU trade relations? What are you waiting for, Ms von der Leyen, to raise your voice and propose a firm response that protects workers in the sectors concerned? I heard you this morning: You are still thinking, considering, calibrating your response, while Donald Trump is actually stripping us. The feverishness of the European Union in the face of pressure from Donald Trump speaks volumes about its inability to envisage its own independence. Yet this was an opportunity to rethink the entire EU policy, including its trade policy. With the United States, of course, but also with the rest of the world. It is obvious that our current economic fragility is the consequence of several decades of your liberal policies, the very ones that have promoted extreme economic globalisation and specialisation. Sweet trade was supposed to be a substitute for war. Result: We will have and war by arms on the European continent and trade war. This supposed freedom of free trade is what now makes us captive to the trade blackmail of Donald Trump. This supposed freedom of free trade makes us unable today to support ourselves: medicines, solar panels, clothing, food, and so on, are imported en masse from the other side of the world. We are getting others to produce what we should be producing here on the European continent. The consequences are well known: relocation and deindustrialisation, rising inequality and unemployment, accelerating the ecological catastrophe. But, Mrs von der Leyen, far from learning from these lessons, you are continuing the flight forward and multiplying the free trade agreements with Mercosur, Mexico, India, Thailand and Malaysia. How dare you, Mrs von der Leyen, again this morning, come and advocate free trade agreements? Have you really learned nothing from our dependence on states outside the European Union? There is an urgent need to completely rethink ways of producing and exchanging. What is produced, and where? For what needs and in what quantity? Are we producing to export airplanes or luxury goods and fatten multinationals, or are we producing to meet basic needs locally – to feed, house, dress, heat, furnish, move, heal? These, Mrs von der Leyen, are the questions you should ask yourself, rather than delighting in the comfort of worn-out economic dogmas: free trade, competitiveness, market, competition, growth... More than ever, we need solidarity-based and ecological protectionism, to refocus our economy on our needs and within planetary boundaries, to build an economy of peace rather than an economy of war. This is what must guide our economies: Our lives rather than their profits.

Colleagues, between corrupt politicians who put their money in their pockets by accepting gifts from lobbyists and those who divert public money, such as Marine Le Pen, frankly, there is enough to disgust people with politics. Those who advocated ‘Head up, hands clean!’ now have their heads down and their hands dirty. Those who called for zero impunity for offenders find themselves caught up in their own game and hand in hand. Those who were the first to rescue Viktor Orbán are suddenly calling for the rule of law. I admit that it is quite tasty to hear the far right talking about the rule of law. You will certainly still ask your buddy Elon Musk to fly to your rescue? But in reality, the problem is even wider. In France, in my country, 26 ministers have been involved in cases since 2017, and in the European Parliament scandals follow one after another, without it arousing the slightest emotion. Two years after the suitcases of Qatari banknotes, there is now a place for luxurious gifts and bank transfers from the multinational Huawei, which you do not even dare to mention in the title of this debate. This is the return of searches, sealed offices and investigations revealing Mafia practices. It's not a Netflix series, it's just the state of our democracy. And what happened between these two cases? Nothing. Just a few bars. Circulate, there is nothing to see. Everyone here stands by the goatee to protect themselves and, most importantly, not change anything. But you can count on my group and me to continue to denounce these schemes and change everything from the cellar to the attic. It is time to clean up and finally put ethics ahead of money.

Mr President, Commissioner, it seems that you have found money, sounding and stumbling, money for tanks, but strangely not for hospitals. Indeed, this is what you propose to us: a war economy, where all of a sudden billions rain down on military spending, but not on social and environmental spending. While the debt of the states was supposed to be an insurmountable point, Europe is getting out of its hat 800 billion for armaments. When we were told that we had to cut spending on our schools and pensions, we had to invest heavily in missiles and guns. While we have been fighting for years – quite alone, it must be said – against the austerity rules, these same rules are suddenly shattering to finance the army. It is as if, all of a sudden, there is no more global warming or poverty, and the only priority is the armoured vehicles. The truth is that the only war you are preparing is a social war. Already, the most fervent advocates of the established economic order see it as an ideal opportunity to push their social enterprise even further and unfold their austere roadmap. Because we need money for guns, they are quick to fire red bullets at our social protection. Some already offer to work until the age of 70 and to retire only after. Why stop in such a good way? Unemployment insurance, working hours, public services, environmental protection... All sacrifices are good for the peoples of Europe, as long as we do not touch the money of the richest. The war economy is really about big bosses and shareholders rubbing their hands. Those who have already experienced the golden age of superprofits during a pandemic are now seeing the financial windfall of the arms race. Already in 2024, no less than $750 billion in dividends were paid worldwide – $69 billion in France alone. Every year, a record is broken and another is chased away. The endless enrichment of a handful aggravates the gaping wound of inequality. Yet, in the eyes of European leaders and the majority of this Parliament, this is still not a sufficient reason to tax the richest and multinationals. Strangely, on the side of the European Commission, you always prefer to slash our social spending, rather than go and get the money where it is. We will not allow ourselves to be trapped in this false dilemma between the defence of Europe and our security on the one hand, and the social state and the ecological bifurcation on the other. It is time to rebuild an economy that is based on our defence needs, but also social and ecological, because no common good can be sacrificed on the altar of war or holy austerity.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner – delighted that you have finally found your way to the European Parliament; I don't know, maybe there was an "omnibus" on your way? – I will start with a simple question for you: Has Donald Trump become your role model? Because, obviously, its great wind of deregulation has blown to this side of the Atlantic. I can imagine you at the European Commission: the planet is burning at +4°C, multinationals continue to make profits by violating human rights, and here you are: Eureka! Let's get rid of the only regulations that exist to hold companies to account! With this "omnibus" package, you are offering a white-pee to the companies that will destroy the planet and exploit the workers. You are throwing multinationals' duty of care into the trash, limiting liability to direct partners only, betraying its very principle, and removing financial sanctions. Too bad if companies like Shein, Total or Vinci continue blithely to violate human rights and destroy the environment with impunity. As long as we are here, you can count on my group to fight to protect these regulations and prevent multinationals from making their laws and generating profits at the expense of our lives.

Mr President, I believe that we were all here waiting for the European Commission to deign to take an interest in our debates, deign to come to the Chamber and deign to come and present the biggest package of deregulation it has ever had. I do not know if the Commissioner is having meetings with lobbyists or banks to continue to deregulate due diligence, but I do not think that we can have such an important debate without the presence of the European Commission. I will therefore ask you whether it is possible to consider rescheduling this debate, to ensure that the European Commission will be present and that, after a while, it stops disrespecting us, as it has done on too many occasions, unfortunately.

Mr President, yesterday's event organised by the ESN Group was about remigration. Remigration is the deportation of people who are European outside the European Union. Mr Garraud, by defending this event, you are showing the true face of the far right, which is today the face of a racist and xenophobic project. So yes, Mr Garraud, we protested peacefully. Yes, Mr Garraud, you will find us every time – every time! – on your way. Whenever you organise racist events on the premises of our European Parliament, you will find us here to protest, because racism has no place either here in the European Parliament or outside.

Madam President, Commissioner, how dare you come here to defend the agreement with Mercosur, the largest and worst free trade agreement ever signed by the European Union? How dare you tell farmers, who are already struggling to make ends meet, that importing hundreds of thousands more tonnes of beef, chicken or cheese will have no impact on them? How dare you deliberately expose the population to GMOs and pesticides banned in Europe? Because no, there will be no reciprocity of norms. How is it possible, at a time of ecological emergency, to support an agreement that will help accelerate global warming and deforestation? Yes, Commissioner, you should be ashamed. Shame, because the reality is that no one wants this deal. And here you find yourself having to pass in force, trampling on the European Parliament's consultation rules. Yesterday, the vote on one of my amendments made it very clear: the concerns about this agreement are extremely strong and there is no real majority in favour of it. The dogma of free trade stifles people and devastates the planet. He's already faltering. The battle is not over. Count on us to bring him down.

Mrs Vedrenne, I appreciate that you like the debate in this Chamber as much as I do. You rightly said that we have the means to act as a European entity. We are a real economic power. But in this case, why give ourselves the means to act, on the one hand, and, on the other, let our European industries be robbed and especially sign in turn free trade agreements with countries around the world? I know you have reservations about the one with Mercosur, but behind it are Mexico, Malaysia, India, China, Australia. You know as well as I do that it is also organizing our own dependence abroad. So I see a certain contradiction in your speech.

Madam President, Donald Trump is multiplying attacks, threats and excesses. What is the European Union doing? She looks at her shoes, her pumps. Worse, she submits. Withdrawal of the WHO, withdrawal of humanitarian aid, withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the UN Human Rights Council, sanctions against the International Criminal Court and even the abject threat to transform the Gaza Strip into a gigantic tourist complex: Here is a glimpse of the disastrous record of Donald Trump and his billionaire henchmen in the space of a few days at the White House. In the face of this policy of the worst, what is the European Union's reaction? Nothing. Ah yes, I did find a statement that says we should deepen our transatlantic relations. Trump wants to rob us and it's just if you don't turn the other cheek, Commissioner, to stay in the fold of the United States, even when his far-right leader tramples on all the principles of international law and puts a target in the back of immigrants and LGBT minorities. This unconditional alignment with the United States is a dead end that is precipitating Europe towards its own ruin. Ironically, those who call themselves the Patriots – not very many, by the way, this morning – in this Parliament, the far right, are also the quickest to idolise Elon Musk and walk with their heads bowed in Trump's footsteps. So, I'm asking you: How many more provocations will it take for European leaders to stop obeying him, with their fingers on the seams of their pants, paralyzed by the prospect of a trade war? Yes, the Trump administration continues to agitate the scarecrow of tariffs on European products. And we, we should be afraid, when our economy weighs the same weight and we have tools to defend ourselves and fight back? Stop being tetanized, Mr. Šefčovič. To those who accuse us of fuelling the economic war with protectionist measures, do not be fooled, because it has already existed for a long time and the European leaders are giving us back the turkeys of the farce and are making us lose it. This war is the one waged by capitalism that puts people in competition and destroys the planet. But rather than learning from its failures, the European Union continues to give full powers to multinationals. And eurêka! She said to herself: "Well, let's sign even more free trade agreements", or even the new mantras of the European Union, "deregulation" and "simplification" of a European Union that in reality loses its compass, to the point of destroying the only social progress wrested in recent years, starting with the duty of vigilance of multinationals. So yes, Mr Šefčovič, Europe must take back its destiny and reduce its dependence on the United States and the rest of the world. How is it that we should import from the other side of the planet medicines or solar panels that we know how to produce here? At a time when the European Union is multiplying these new agreements, it is time to put an end to free trade. It is time to radically change the rules to produce at the scale of our continent what we need, to regain our sovereignty over energy, industry, agriculture and food through a true protectionism of solidarity. This is the path that Europe must take to face the perils that lie ahead. Without it, we run to our own loss.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Prime Minister Tusk, on 9 June 2023, a woman, Dorota Lalik, five months pregnant, died of sepsis because she was unable to have an abortion. This happened in your country, Mr Tusk, Poland. This 33-year-old woman had her life ahead of her. She died because men decreed that they knew better than women what to do with their bodies. Like Dorota, too many women have lost their lives due to the abortion ban in Poland. How can this still happen in Europe in the 21st century, when we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Veil law in my country, France? The right to abortion is in jeopardy, and the total passivity of the European Union is encouraging the reactionary international, which is organising to attack it all over Europe, as we saw again at a rally held this weekend in Paris. Yet, Mr Tusk, you were elected on the promise to liberalise the right to abortion against the PiS, which had introduced this despicable law. While some political groups here again believe they are celebrating with your government the victory of the free world, you are in fact prolonging some of the far-right policies. This is reflected in the work programme of your Presidency of the European Union. I read it correctly and, frankly, I wondered if there were not parts that had been written by Mr Orbán or by Ms Meloni. As inequality explodes, as climate disasters pile up, you have only one word to say: security. What about Dorota's safety, Mr. Tusk? What about the safety of women who risk their lives to decide the simplest and inalienable right to dispose of their own bodies? The worst part is that you connect this word, of course, to the fantasy of a migratory invasion. No wonder, when you know that you want to suspend the right to asylum. Yet there was so much to do with this Polish presidency, such as having a blocking minority to oppose the free trade agreement with Mercosur, or creating genuine European independence rather than aligning with Donald Trump’s US footsteps. Unless you consider their climate-sceptic, racist and misogynistic project the way forward. Mr Tusk, in conclusion, we do not oppose the far right by taking up some of its proposals. For Dorota and for all the victims of the obscurantists, on the contrary, we have the duty to oppose her frontally, with a radically emancipatory project.

Madam President, Madam President, Mr President, weapons have finally died in Gaza. The entry into force of the ceasefire is a huge relief, and its preservation must be at the heart of the Council's exchanges, rather than the signature in turn of new free trade agreements, Mrs von der Leyen. I am thinking today of the 2 million Gazans who have lived for 18 months in fear and hunger and who are finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. I am thinking of the hundreds of thousands of children whose only playground was a field of ruins, and who will be able to find a few moments of respite and carelessness. I am thinking of the Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners who will finally find their loved ones, and freedom. But the precarious hope that is rising keeps a bitter taste, because too much time has been lost. At least 46,000 civilians have already been massacred under Israeli bombs. These women, these men, these children have been abandoned by the European Union, which has not only been helpless, but complicit in the martyrdom of the Palestinians. Mrs von der Leyen, Mr Costa, how many lives could have been saved if the European states had not been so cowardly, if they had stopped sending arms to Benjamin Netanyahu, if the European Union had suspended its association agreement with Israel? Mrs von der Leyen, you have done nothing to stop the war, but you can still act to restore peace. For while the massacre has temporarily stopped, the torment of the Palestinians is far from over. Those who survived find themselves on a field of ruins, when they do not continue to be targeted, such as this child shot down by an Israeli missile or the Jenin camp in the West Bank, which is subject to numerous attacks. In a year and a half, an entire territory has been razed, its population starved and massacred, humanitarian aid blocked, hospitals deliberately destroyed by a genocidal far-right government whose leader is under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. So yes, the European Union must say it clearly: War criminals must be tried, illegal colonization of the Palestinian territories must stop, and finally a sovereign Palestinian state must be created. Ms von der Leyen, you cannot redeem your culpable inaction during the genocide, but you have a duty, at the very least, to do everything to protect the survivors and offer a promise for the future to the children of Gaza. So today, to conclude, I think of the words of the Palestinian poet Marwan Makhoul: “I have to listen to the birds, and to listen to the birds, the bomber noise has to stop, it has to stop forever so that Palestine finally finds its freedom.”

Madam President, rest assured, you will have the opportunity to vote in a moment, because I cannot help but react. Frankly, hearing the extreme right give lessons on ethics in this institution, while it has consistently voted against all the proposals on the fight against conflicts of interest, is involved in a number of scandals and has a large number of MEPs who receive the most ancillary remuneration from large companies, frankly, it is a huge joke. Because the subject we're talking about, it's serious. After the ‘Qatargate’ scandal – as we all remember – everyone had promised that this time it was the der des der and that it would change... (Tumult on the benches of the far right. Chahut). Colleagues, can you let me talk, maybe? Colleagues, let me... I listened to you with great attention and patience. I am well aware that, when you are caught in the bag giving lessons on ethics in politics, but doing nothing in practice, it is a bit complicated for you and you have to protest, but let me finish, because the case we are talking about is extremely serious. We have a former European Commissioner who, just six months later, is going to sell his services to Bank of America, one of the biggest American banks – icing on the cake, just before Donald Trump’s inauguration – and all, of course, with the blessing of the European Commission. And that is what is at stake and why we need to have a debate to confront the Commission with its own rules.