Speeches

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, do you know how many years it takes for the SMIC to reach the wealth of Bernard Arnault, the richest European? More than 10 million years working at the minimum wage. However, it is not to Bernard Arnault that the European states will make their pockets. No, it is up to the workers, by making them pay for their sick leave, because it is well known: When you're sick, it's a little bit of your fault. It's up to the students, abandoning them to dilapidated universities. It's the pensioners, slashing their pensions. It's even for everyone, increasing the electricity bill. These ideas, in reality, I do not invent them. This is the French government's roadmap to satisfy your sacrosanct austerity rules, which you voted for here, without, of course, touching a single hair of the wealthiest. Yet the cultural battle that has been waged for years is beginning to bear fruit. Even the G20 is calling for taxing billionaires. So what are we waiting for, ladies and gentlemen? That it doesn't take 10 million years, but 20 million years of SMIC to reach Bernard Arnault's fortune?

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Lebanon is burning before our eyes and could become the new Gaza. Yet, once again, the European Union looks elsewhere and shines with its passivity, even its complicity. Already nearly 2,000 Lebanese have died and one million have been forcibly displaced, or one in five Lebanese. It is a widespread exile, with civilians paying a high price. Contrary to what some Israeli army spokesmen say here, Israel is not waging a war against Hezbollah; Israel is waging a war against the Lebanese people and the Palestinian people. Explain to me what role the 87-year-old Franco-Lebanese woman killed in an explosion last week played in Hezbollah's apparatus. This is exactly what happened in Gaza, where Israel does not seek to eradicate Hamas, but to organize the ethnic cleansing of Gazans. When schools, hospitals and homes are bombed indiscriminately, a legitimate war is not waged; It violates the most basic rules of humanitarian law. When doctors, teachers, journalists and humanitarians are deliberately killed, terrorists are not attacked; We massacre civilians and commit genocide. The drama unfolding in Lebanon does not fall from the sky. This is the consequence of your own renunciations, Commissioner. By refusing to lift a finger in the face of the plight of the Palestinians, the European Union is directly responsible for the plight of the Lebanese. If the Israeli far right allows itself to blithely violate international law, it is because it is allowed to do so. If Netanyahu no longer has any limits, it is because no limits have been imposed on him. In Gaza, the IDF massacred 42,000 people, mostly women and children. In Gaza, Europe said nothing. Israel refuses the entry into its territory of the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Europe has said nothing. The Israeli government is setting the entire region on fire and bloodshed. Europe has said nothing. How far? Until the whole region is decimated? Ladies and gentlemen, we have rightly passed dozens of resolutions denouncing the acts of war criminal Putin and taking action against them. Why are we unable to do the same for the crimes of the Israeli army? Are you able, colleagues, to face each other in the morning, when you consider that a life of a Ukrainian is not worth a life of a Palestinian or a Lebanese? This double standard is unbearable. If Europe wants to weigh in on the global balance, it must take its responsibilities, putting in place massive and immediate sanctions to force the Israeli government to finally concede a ceasefire. First, no more European weapons should be delivered to Israel. Emmanuel Macron, the French president himself, has finally called for this embargo. I note that it took more than 40,000 deaths for him to take a stand. Finally, let us move from words to deeds and impose it at European level. Secondly, no more European cents should be paid under the partnership agreement between Israel and the European Union. He must be suspended immediately. I'm telling you with gravity: Every day that passes is an extra stain of blood on our humanity. Everything must be done to stop this carnage. It's time to bring peace.

Mr President, 'three minutes is not rape'. "She was pretending to sleep." "His husband was there, so she was consenting." "You wouldn't have exhibitionist tendencies?" These words and questions of the defendants and lawyers during Mazan's trial, Gisèle Pelicot had to deal with them for hours, after being raped by more than 51 men to whom her husband handed her over by drugging her for more than ten years. They are firefighters, craftsmen, nurses, journalists, in short, all-world gentlemen who used the body of Gisèle Pelicot as an object. This trial is first and foremost the magnifying mirror of rape culture, present on all floors of our society and through which men arrogate power over women's bodies. But how many victims, how many hashtags, how many cases will it take for us to take the measure of what is at stake today in this trial? I want to shout my anger here, but here in this House we can do much more than get angry. We can act to relaunch the fight on the definition of rape as lack of consent, because a sexual relationship without consent is rape, point barre. To finally move from the culture of widespread rape to a culture of free and enthusiastic consent. For shame to change sides for good.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have a little riddle for you. When you buy an iPhone like this for $800, do you know how much Apple paid in taxes? Two euros, or 0.0005% of its profit and not even in the country where you bought it, but in Ireland. So, after eight years of fighting, we finally won a battle: Apple has to pay a fine of 13 billion euros. Mais la guerre contre l'évasion fiscale est loin d'être gagnée. Every year, multinationals register 1 trillion euros in tax havens, half of which are in European tax havens. And who did the European Commission choose to lead this fight? Wopke Hoekstra, former finance minister of a European tax haven and himself involved in the latest Pandora Papers tax evasion scandal with a shell company, hold on tight, in the British Virgin Islands. We want to cry about it, and unfortunately, that's the case. But while you're at it, ask Monsanto to stop GMOs. Frankly, the message is clear: tax gifts to multinationals and make the people pay the bill. We will not let you go, to put an end to this robbery organized gang.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, put me in no doubt: When Mario Draghi talks about the slow agony of the European Union, is it the agony caused by a worn-out economic model? And why, in this case, not draw all the necessary consequences? Because I looked at the 400 pages of Mr Draghi's report - I would have liked him to be able to sit here to have this debate with us - and one thing that struck me was the level of contradiction. For example, how can we dare to talk about the relaunch of industrial policy without proposing a break with free trade, which installs unfair competition and brings goods from all over the world, whether our clothes or our medicines? Worse, Mario Draghi even proposes to abandon entire industries, such as solar panels. How can we also dare to criticize, rightly, too high energy prices without encouraging people to leave the energy market, the electricity market, and regain control of all essential goods and services undermined by the dogma of competition? How can we then dare to call for additional investment without calling into question the fiscal austerity rules that prevent investment in our public services, our social protection, our infrastructure? How can we dare to speak of ecological ambition without mentioning for a moment the imperative of sobriety, nor propose to subject the private sector to strict ecological conditionalities? Even worse, Mario Draghi even calls for deregulating and burning down some of the environmental laws. In this picture of the future of the European economy, productivity, growth and neoliberalism remain the watchwords, and multinationals, the only masters on board. But I'm going to confide in you. However much you may do, ladies and gentlemen, as I understand it here, about competitiveness, the alpha and omega of all European policies, competitiveness cannot be eaten, drunk, housed or heated, nor can it breathe clean air. So, even if I were to write 400 pages, I would have preferred Mr. Draghi to persist in describing how our economy can meet social needs, eradicate poverty and inequality while responding to the ecological emergency. Because otherwise, it is not a slow agony but a very rapid fall that awaits us.

Madam Speaker, I wanted soberly and briefly to respond to the targeted attack on my colleague Rima Hassan by Ms. Nathalie Loiseau, whose selective indignation comes to the rescue of Mr. Bellamy, who has constantly targeted my colleague Rima Hassan for the simple fact of being Franco-Palestinian, for the simple fact of defending peace in Palestine. And since you are talking about a target, Mrs Loiseau, the only ones who have targets on their heads at the moment are the children, women and families of Palestine who have been constantly targeted by the Israeli government, for what they are and for what they represent, because they have asked to live in peace, asked to live with dignity. I tell you, Mrs Loiseau, with a form of singularity in this Chamber, that you will never be able to intimidate either Rima Hassan or our group as a whole: we will be the voice of peace in Palestine, but also in Ukraine, here in this Chamber.

Madam President, thank you. Mrs von der Leyen, your speech illustrates all the contempt you have for people in trouble. I listened to you: in more than half an hour, you did not mention once the word ‘poverty’, the word ‘unemployment’, but there was one for ‘competitiveness’, ‘prosperity’, to cajole businesses. Mrs von der Leyen, I know that you earn more than EUR 30 000 a month, but do you know that one in three Europeans has to skip meals? That millions of Europeans will once again miss out on holidays because, on the 10th of the month, they are already in the red? Mrs von der Leyen, get out of your ivory tower and finally face reality. Because there is no real reason to be satisfied with your past mandate and even less reason to give yourself a new one. Did you, as we asked you, tax the multinationals that feed themselves and the billionaires, those multinationals that increase the prices of our shopping basket? No, you coaxed them. Did you live up to the climate emergency? No. We were entitled to unambitious measures and greenwashing market ecology. Have you protected our farmers and industry from international competition? No. You have multiplied free trade agreements. Did you save our public services? No. Here, too, you have tightened the austerity rules that are destroying them. Did you act for transparency in the face of the omnipotence of the lobbies? No. Here again, rather than finally putting ethics before money – you have just been condemned, Madam, by the Court of Justice of the European Union for the opacity of contracts for COVID vaccines. Today, Mrs von der Leyen, you should not even stand in front of us, but rather in front of a judge. Mrs Van der Leyen, have you made the voice of peace heard? You say that the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip must be stopped. But the reality is that you, Mrs von der Leyen, have sided with Benjamin Netanyahu, who has blood on his hands and is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip. It is your responsibility, Mrs von der Leyen, because you refuse to take the necessary sanctions, such as an arms embargo. Have you defended the human rights of the exiles? No. Here again, rather than a Europe of solidarity, you have created a Europe of barbed wire. This is your real record, Mrs von der Leyen. It is catastrophic and its direct consequence is the unprecedented rise of the far right. And we should start over for another five years? The victory of the United Left of the New Popular Front in France shows that another path is possible. Because, no, Mrs von der Leyen, we do not fight the extreme right by taking up its ideas: Fascism is defeated if one refuses to give in, even an inch, to their authoritarian and reactionary project. Mrs von der Leyen, we know today that your re-election will only be due to small opaque arrangements between friends. But European citizens are tired of these old methods and want clarity. Our group will reject all these schemes and defend a clear alternative for wealth sharing, climate action, fundamental rights, women’s rights and peace. Of course, as we have done in the last five years, we will vote for all the texts that go in that direction. We welcome the appointment of a Housing Commissioner, but we will not be satisfied with words. We want deeds and we will refuse, as you have understood - I will finish - to participate in the masquerade... (the President invited the speaker to conclude) ...of your deadly grand coalition and my group on the left will therefore vote against your re-election. Your Europe is not ours, Mrs von der Leyen. So, against your Europe of austerity and the market, count on us to defend a Europe of humanity and solidarity.

Madam President, I believe that, unfortunately, it will not have taken more than one plenary session for the far right to show its true face and attack human rights defenders who, like my colleague Ilaria Salis, have been imprisoned by Orban for defending fundamental rights. I have to tell you how honoured it is that she sits on the benches of the Left, and she will be there to fight you and your regime, you and the far right, you and your questioning of fundamental rights, and we will be proud that she sits alongside us here as a Member of the European Parliament, on behalf of everyone, but also of Hungarians!

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, rape takes place every seven minutes in the European Union, or 100,000 every year. And how many rapists are convicted? Less than 1%. What if only 1% of burglars or thieves were convicted? That it is organised and widespread impunity. This would make all the banners of the continuous news channels. But note that it is always different when it comes to women’s rights. Yes, this text on combating gender-based and sexual violence is a step in the right direction; But I cannot help but be angry at Emmanuel Macron, who, alongside his favourite ally Victor Orbán, blocked a common European definition of rape. So I want to repeat it here in this gallery: Emmanuel Macron, on the right and on the far right: Sexual intercourse without consent is rape and must be included as such in European law. And we will proclaim it as long as it takes, loud and clear: Women's bodies don't belong to you, neither does our consent.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what are you going to say to the sick who are going to see the price of their medicines rise, to the unemployed who are going to lose their unemployment insurance, to pensioners whose pensions are going to be frozen, to tenants of thermal sieves whose housing will not be renovated, to parents whose children will not have teachers in front of them, in short, to the millions of people weakened by austerity? That the 3 % deficit and 60 % debt had to be tackled at all costs? That a good rating of rating agencies is well worth a huge social racket of Europeans? That they should be pocketed, rather than taxing large fortunes and superprofits? Whatever the sacrifices, it will actually never be enough for you. This is what you condemn us to with the vote on these budgetary rules: austerity in perpetuity. This is how socialists, liberals and the right are working together to secure our future, our public services, our social protection and even the environment. But if there is anything that is being negotiated, it is debt, not the planet. Take a look at how the French government is already taking it to heart with its help from Lépine of the worst ideas to deprive the French of all that they have most precious: hospitals, schools, public transport, unemployment insurance, public service, ecological investments... everything, absolutely everything will suffer the assaults of the austere bulldozer. Destroy the social state to better cajole capital. Sabotage the ecological fork to run the money pump. We have been the only ones in this House to oppose your scorched earth economic policy. Then, on 9 June, your damage is permanently stopped, before it is irreversible.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as we propose to enshrine the right to abortion in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, we see that the reactionary right is redoubled in ingenuity to oppose it. I therefore propose replacing this part, which, I quote, ‘remains a controversial issue on which EU societies have diverse views’ with ‘the right to abortion is a human right and a fundamental freedom that must be protected from attacks by the far right and reactionaries’. Because no, ladies and gentlemen, the right to abortion is not a question of perspective, it is a human right. No, the right to abortion is not controversial, it is a fundamental freedom. No, the right to abortion does not kill, on the contrary, it saves lives. And while you quietly tackle it here in the European Parliament, you can count on us in Brussels, Paris, Rome, Budapest, wherever you interfere with women's rights, you will find us on your way.

Madam President, do you want to know how lobbyists make the law in the European institutions? I have a short instruction manual for you. In 2019, I arrived here in the European Parliament, like many of my colleagues, with a determination: the acceptance and adoption of a European directive on the due diligence of multinationals, so that, finally, Total, Shein and Apple pay for their crimes and for the environmental disasters from which they profit. These crimes continue because our laws do not allow companies to be held accountable for the horrors committed on their behalf by their subcontractors. Then, a little later, in 2022, Emmanuel Macron comes here, in this gallery, to make a promise – we say to ourselves: “Well, it’s interesting, a promise” – that France will support the duty of care. But, as always, ladies and gentlemen, with Emmanuel Macron, we must read the small lines at the bottom of the contract. Because, in reality, it had to be understood that France would support the Due Diligence Directive, subject to the agreement of the MEDEF. Lack of pot, the MEDEF and the employers' unions are against. For the past two weeks, Emmanuel Macron, his allies in Germany and Giorgia Meloni in Italy have been preventing the adoption of this law. We had Macron as Uber’s servant; This is Macron, Total's lawyer. Yet it is an essential and historic law, obliging large companies to prevent, stop and remedy the crimes they profit from, a law that imposes fines on multinational criminals of up to 5% of their turnover, a law that allows their victims to obtain redress before European courts. This is the law that we negotiated collectively with the European Commission and with the Council and the Member States. This, in theory, is the way democracy is used, if not the way lobbyists come here to get involved. So if the EU directive does not pass, I want to tell Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz, Giorgia Meloni that they will have blood on their hands: that of the workers who died on the World Cup sites in Qatar, that of the Uyghurs who were enslaved in China, that of the children trapped in the Congo mines for the profits of a few multinational companies. Emmanuel Macron, it is time to choose between reason or betrayal, between criminals or victims, between our lives or their profits. Make the right choice, or we will make you pay at the polls on June 9.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, last week France led the way in Europe. Last week, France entered the history of pioneering women’s rights nations by incorporating abortion into its Constitution. Last week, in France, reactionaries of all stripes who, here, want to deprive women of the right to dispose of their bodies have definitively lost. But we know that they are gaining ground in Europe, driven by anti-choice propaganda worthy of the worst reactionaries, who even send us plastic fetuses; pushed by media outlets that relay this propaganda, as recently in France, CNews, which presented abortion as the leading cause of death in the world; pushed by the far right, which still shows its true face today: tackling women’s rights, tackling LGBT rights. Yes, we will arrest you, and yes, we will defend women’s rights to the very end against all the reactionaries on your side, who, once in power, attack women’s rights in the first place. May this victory in France, wrested from the struggle by the mobilisation of feminist associations, allow us to open a path in Europe, as we have been asking for years, to include abortion in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, so that in Poland, Hungary, everywhere in Europe, women can finally decide freely, so that a woman never again has to suffer the martyrdom of hangers, the anguish of clandestineity or the risk of death, so that women never again lose control of their bodies. It is for these same reasons that we will continue the fight to integrate consent into the definition of rape at European level, an approach blocked by Emmanuel Macron and all his reactionary allies on the benches of the extreme right, in front of me. How many times will we have to repeat it? Sexual intercourse without consent is rape, you don’t mind, just like a non-consensual kiss, like Luis Rubiales’ kiss to player Jenni Hermoso is sexual assault, and I’m surprised that no one here has spoken about it. It is time to put an end to the terrible sense of impunity felt by all these men who think that women’s bodies belong to them. It’s time to break down all stereotypes, and it’s the water polo player talking to you. But first and foremost, it is time to put down patriarchy so that every woman can choose her destiny freely forever.

You said, Mrs Vedrenne, that Richard Virenque has won a lot of trophies, it is true. But he won a lot of trophies by cheating and doping. And that is precisely what you are doing with French agriculture, cheating. Because yes, you will say Chile, it is 2% of imports, but it will be Chile, plus New Zealand, plus Kenya, plus Mexico, plus Mercosur. Where are we going to stop? And every tonne that will be imported onto European soil will be a tonne that will endanger our European agriculture.

I saw, Mrs Vedrenne, that you were at the Agricultural Fair with Mr Macron, the President of the French Republic, who said: "delegating to others our ability to produce our food, at bottom, is madness". And what is free trade if not importing products from the other side of the world and delegating our ability to produce and our food to others? So how, under these conditions, do you assume to vote this new free trade agreement? Unless you are the Richard Virenque of free trade and you sign and vote on agreements without your own free will?

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in recent weeks I have seen you come to the farmers’ hearts, make declarations of love, tell them that we owe them so much and that we must help them. But did you also tell them that you were about to vote for yet another free trade agreement? Oh no, not one but two: with Chile and Kenya. That must be capitalism, two for the price of one. Have you told them that, because of you, the European Union is going to import thousands of tonnes of chickens, pigs, sheepmeat, olive oil, grapes and apples from the other side of the world? As if our farmers didn't know how to produce all this, here in Europe. Have you told them that you are going to subject them a little more to unfair competition, as if they are not already suffering the effects of more than 40 free trade agreements in force? Did you tell them that you were sacrificing European agriculture after going to try the cows’ ass, tasting their products and promising mountains and wonders on floor prices, as President Macron did? Frankly, you are just a bunch of hypocrites and liars. Explain to me how ambitious or sustainable it is to import from the other side of the world products that we know how to produce here, which benefit from much lower wages and which are produced with GMOs and pesticides that are banned in the European Union? And who votes against here? This is the moment of truth. Only my group in the European Parliament votes against this agreement and these agreements. From social democrats to the far right and liberals, there were no votes against. And the worst part is that you don’t stop on such a good path. After Chile, it will be Mercosur, Australia, Mexico, India and Indonesia. A beautiful tour of the world, not to mention the unfair competition just on our doorstep, posed by Ukraine. But precisely, we are not asking our food products to go around the world to fatten some agro-industrialists who make their butter on the backs of our farmers. So, ladies and gentlemen, I say to you very clearly: stop feeding their profits. The only people we want to feed here are the people. The planet is not a large commercial area serving multinationals where farmers’ lives are discounted.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as we speak, 1.5 million people know that they will be sentenced to death in Rafah if we do nothing. Israel is preparing to launch a massive ground operation there after shelling the city with bombs, while more than half of Gaza’s population has taken refuge there under Israeli orders and is now crammed into it in abominable conditions. What will happen in the coming hours, if international pressure does not bring Netanyahu back to his senses, is a real carnage. As Mr Borrell himself said, Gazans do not die alone. They are dying because Benjamin Netanyahu is acting with impunity. They die because they deliver military equipment to Israel to blindly kill tens of thousands of Palestinians. They die because the EU prefers to turn a blind eye and refuses to suspend its association agreement with Israel for some lucrative profits. They die because the European Union is unable to implement the ruling of the International Court of Justice, which orders precautionary measures against Israel in the face of the risk of genocide. They are dying because Members here in this Chamber, just now, from the right-wing side, refuse to help them. They are dying because members here prefer to condone humanitarian carnage and genocide. They die because some here prefer to have blood on their hands.

Mr Canfin, you told us that it would not change anything to point to free trade. However, you and your group voted for one of the last free trade agreements with New Zealand, which, for example, will include the import of 15 000 tonnes of milk, 25 000 tonnes of cheese, 36 000 tonnes of butter, 164 000 tonnes of beef, all produced with pesticides, such as atrazine, which are banned in the European Union but still allowed in New Zealand. So do you think, for all these farmers, that it will not change anything to continue to import massively these products, which contribute to unfair competition?

Mr President, 'we are supposed to feed people, and you let us die in our fields': This is what I was told last week by farmers I met on blockages. Who lets them die? Names must be given: it is you, ladies and gentlemen, who have systematically refused floor prices in order to pay farmers with dignity, who have swept away the possibility of blocking the margins of the agro-industry, who have squandered their pockets by cracking down on consumers, who have in turn signed free trade agreements that impose totally unfair competition on our farmers. How dare you come to this forum and make great statements for farmers, hand in hand, when with that same hand you have just approved the free trade agreement with New Zealand, which will increase imports of milk, meat, cheese, wine or honey from literally the other side of the planet? All this, of course, with pesticides banned on European soil. Fortunately, hypocrisy does not kill, colleagues, unlike farming. Our group here in Parliament is the only one in this Chamber to have unanimously rejected all these free trade agreements. As if that were not enough, you voted for two more, last week, with Chile and Kenya. Where are you going to stop? On the complete death of our European agriculture? Do not tell me that the agreement with Mercosur would be paused when, in reality, negotiations continue and another shovel of agreements with Mexico, Australia and India is looming. How do you want our farmers to be competitive against the huge factory farms in Brazil or Ukraine? Explain to me the meaning of importing from the other side of the world products that are already produced here, and of good quality! All these agreements are insults addressed to farmers, arboriculturists, market gardeners, fishermen, agricultural workers, who feed us on a daily basis. Last week, I met two beekeepers who were calling for help. Like many, they find themselves with all of their 2023 production on their hands, which large retailers no longer want to buy, preferring New Zealand, Chinese or Ukrainian honey. Bees are foraging and supermarkets are pocketing the loot. Like many of their colleagues, these two beekeepers are discouraged and are thinking about stopping everything. What are you going to tell them? That we will continue with this madness? Farmers no longer want, can no longer be the cash cows of agribusiness and your free trade obsession, colleagues. If you continue along this path, all European agriculture will be left behind.

Mr President, our European Parliament is under control. After Qatar, we learn that a member of parliament works for the Russian secret services. Putin's interference is outrageous, but don't count on me to cry with the ball of hypocrites feigning surprise. The truth is that corruption in the European institutions is not an accident but a system. The truth is that you, Mr Schinas, are giving a lot of ethics lessons today, but when it came to Qatar and you had your hands stuck in it, you did not hesitate to give them a hand. The truth, ladies and gentlemen, is that the majority of you refuse serious rules and controls and impunity is enshrined in law. The truth is that a quarter of the Members here have violated the law or the Rules of Procedure – corruption, embezzlement, harassment. Corrupt people, ladies and gentlemen, are like vampires: They hate the light. Then we will continue to shine a huge spotlight on these practices. And on 9 June, we will have the opportunity to clean up and drive out all the magouilleurs in the European institutions.

Madam President, Minister, Mrs von der Leyen, the record is clear. The reality is that you are giving in to Mr. Orban's whims. You play the game of this institutional hostage-taking organised by Hungary that blocks aid to Ukraine and prevents the revision of the European budget. But we'll talk frankly. It would be a bit easy to hide behind the Hungarian president's spree. We have been saying this for a while now: this European budget is totally insufficient to meet the social and environmental challenges of the moment. And in the face of this, you have systematically refused our proposals to increase the resources of the European Union, for example, randomly, by using multinationals and the richest who continue, year after year, to raise indecent sums. I'll take just one example. In my country, in France, 42 billionaires have earned 230 billion euros in one year, the equivalent of a check of 3,400 euros for each Frenchman. At the same time, shareholders received nearly €100 billion in dividends last year. And on the other side, we have a third of Europeans skipping meals and people dying on the streets of our states. The equation is simple: We have in front of us a privileged minority who are gathered in Davos at the moment - I do not know if you will go, Mrs von der Leyen - who are enriching themselves on the backs of all the others who are impoverished. However, your committee, as well as the right and the Liberals in this Parliament, have systematically refused to go and get the money, the money where it is, by blocking the margins of the multinational companies that are getting richer and by using the billionaires who are bingeing. Instead, you are making people pay, people who are struggling, people by destroying public services, weakening labour rights, demanding unfair reforms, pensions and unemployment benefits. All this for what? To satisfy your sacrosanct fiscal rules that bring back austerity. Because in reality, this is the real subject that no one is talking about today and that should mobilize us all. I'm raising the alarm here. We have before us the greatest fiscal austerity cure ever seen on our continent. And it does not come from nowhere, Mrs von der Leyen, it is your direct responsibility. Seriously, I have a question for you. You do not find that our nurseries are not overcrowded enough, that 30,000 beds have been removed from hospitals in my country, in France, since 2017, it is not enough that our hospitals are in very good health, that there is not enough teachers already in our public schools, that our medicines and medical consultations are already not expensive enough, that electricity rates are not high enough and that public aid must be abolished? And then you said to yourself: with the zealous support of European states, Eureka! Let's do even worse! Let us call on states to further sacrifice public services. I conclude, Madam President, because the President of the Renew Group – not even the President – Mr Verhofstadt, has had a little more time. I finish, I have a short time, I promise you. In my country, France, the application of these new fiscal rules will mean cuts in public spending of 22 billion euros per year. So OK, this is only 12% of Bernard Arnault's fortune, but in real life, brought back to the state budget, it will mean the equivalent of the suppression of 623,000 teaching positions. Suffice it to say a social massacre, to which you add a democratic scandal, ladies and gentlemen, since a coalition of social democrats and liberals and the right together is trying to pass in force. Perhaps you were inspired by President Macron to import 49.3 from France to Europe, well, I tell you, we will not let you.

I note, Ms Loiseau, that you do not answer my question. I am in favour of condemning all war criminals, all those who commit war crimes. But I ask you a very clear question: Do you call for a permanent ceasefire for the Palestinians who are now under Israeli bombs? And I have a second question. Since you are talking about armaments, the European Union is complicit and sends millions of euros of weapons to Israel. So are you going to call for the EU to stop cooperating in this massacre and to call for a permanent ceasefire and stop sending weapons? And I hope that this time I will have a slightly clearer answer.

Ms. Loiseau, more than 24,000 Palestinians have already died in the Gaza Strip, including 10,000 children, under Israeli bombs. And I believe, you will agree, that the least we owe to the Palestinians who are under the bombs is clarity. And I regret from that point of view that the Renaissance Group, and in this case Stéphane Séjourné himself at the last Conference of Presidents, supported the deletion of the term ‘permanent’ to our Parliament’s call for a ceasefire. So my question is very clear: Are you calling for a permanent halt to the massacres or are you just asking for a pause while Israel rebuilds its missile stockpiles to continue decimating the Palestinian people?

Mr. Speaker, 100 days, 100 days that Israel bombs Gaza without a truce and massacres more than 300 innocent people a day, and already more than 10,000 children. 100 days for Netanyahu to realize the macabre dream of the Israeli far right: to eradicate Palestine and its people. 100 days that together with my group on the left, I come here to ask you for our Parliament to act for peace. But today, ladies and gentlemen, our work and determination are finally paying off. Against the war-mongering of the right and the extreme right, the European Parliament is finally preparing to call for a cease-fire. But if you have come to your senses, ladies and gentlemen, also call for justice, by supporting South Africa's initiative, to bring the matter before the International Court of Justice to establish the genocidal nature of Israel's action, but also by suspending our partnership agreement with Israel and stopping our arms exports to Israel. In short, ladies and gentlemen, by ceasing complicity with the European Union. For 100 days, more than 24,000 Palestinians died. Let us not wait one more day or death to demand justice and peace.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it was not until 28 COP that States finally deigned to address the taboo of fossil fuels, but without asking for a clear and clear exit, when they are the main culprit of climate change. It will be necessary to transition without distance, without trajectory or binding timetable. In reality, it is our future on a habitable land that is moving away. The only victory to salute is therefore this great lexical creativity, I must admit, to invent terms that commit to nothing. Because today, humanity is actually transitioning mainly towards its extinction. And it's no surprise, as this conference of parties was actually a conference of lobbyists. 2500 lobbyists teeming in the corridors, four times more than for COP27. The boss of Total, a great eco, as we know, in Emmanuel Macron's suitcases. And, of course, the COP president himself, Sultan Al-Jaber, who happens to be the CEO of an oil giant. I summarize: We know that climate change is already irreversible. We're on a cataclysmic trajectory at more than three or four degrees. 2023 is already the hottest year on record. But we let the lobbies make their laws. How long are we going to accept this? As long as we negotiate with those who plundered the planet, nothing will move. As long as we refuse a radical and total break with this economic system that destroys everything, nothing will change. Ecology without questioning capitalism, colleagues, is gardening, and we no longer have time to garden. We have a planet to save.