Speeches

Madam President, clearly, I believe that we are witnessing the most complete exercise of hypocrisy on the part of the right. Who, who, gentlemen of the EPP, voted with the far right? Who voted with the far right to empower lobbies and push back the end of free quotas? Who today is responsible for climate denial? It's you, it's you. So yes, we have chosen to work together, to work together with the Greens, to work together with the Socialists and above all to work together with civil society to have a high level of ambition at the climate level. You will bear the shame of this time in the coming years. Yes, we will work, because, remember the friends, remember, colleagues, that the ENVI vote brought the end of free quotas to 2030. So let's work with the ENVI committee to return to this level of ambition, because clearly we can't wait another 30 years.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I brought you this article from the Mediapart newspaper, which documents how Total’s behind-the-scenes lobbying in the 1990s caused us to lose 30 years of climate action. Thirty years behind due to the culpable weakness of the European policies of the time, which gave up a real tax on fossil fuels. Thirty years wasted, which now puts the knife under our throats, when we only have three years left to act, according to the IPCC. It is in this context that we must understand what is at stake in the vote on the European climate package tomorrow. Because, concretely, thirty years later, when I read this article, I thought to myself that the same guilty error might well be repeating itself. You know that: we in the Left Group in the European Parliament already regret the weakness of this climate package, whose objective and means are not even aligned with the Paris Agreements, and which continues to rely on market mechanisms. But these small steps are obviously still too much for some, and they are threatened, as they were 30 years ago, by the action of lobbies. Moreover, I am quite surprised: None of us here have talked about it - it's kind of the elephant in the room - but, as MEPs, we are all beset by more alarmist and false messages that more or less herald the end of the world and a rain of locusts if the climate package goes as it is. I have brought you some examples of the emails we receive: Here is an email from EasyJet and Ryanair, who want us to believe that penalising aviation carbon emissions risks increasing them. the President of FNSEA denies the climate cost of chemical fertilisers; Metal lobbies want to sanctify their right to pollute free of charge. Come on, for the form, I'll give you one last one: for car manufacturers, it would be more or less the apocalypse with the end of thermal engines ... In short, you have understood: All polluters are out to continue rotting the planet, to cherish their shareholders. And the right and the far right, again this morning, were religiously reiterating their arguments and their amendments. I will therefore ask you a fairly simple question, ladies and gentlemen: Are you going to do the same as those who, in the 1990s, gave in to pressure from lobbies to save fossils and wasted 30 years on climate action? Our choice, in the Group of the Left in the European Parliament, is clear: we want to believe in our future rather than the lies of the lobbies, because this time we cannot really, but really cannot afford to wait another 30 years.

Mr President, when our bills explode, there is one thing to do, it is simple, it is basic, and above all it can relieve millions of people in trouble: blocking prices so that lighting, heating or moving is not a luxury. But, as simple as it may seem, it took you almost a year, Commissioner, to start timidly considering in your REPowerEU plan a blockage of gas prices, or even resolve to talk about the taxation of companies that took the opportunity to binge on it. I could believe in a feat, but I know that the Commission has agreed to derogate from this sacrosanct energy market, not least because Spain and Portugal had already led the way without waiting for the green light from the European Union. Disobedience can finally bring the European Commission back to its senses. But I suggest you don't stop on such a good path. The war in Ukraine is not only exploding energy prices. It is also gasoline, wheat and many basic food products that are growing every day. So now that the European Commission has discovered the usefulness of price regulation, I propose one thing: it is time to do the same for all basic necessities.

Madam President, Macron and the French Presidency had told us that the promised tax evasion is over. Their absence from the debate today is certainly a symbol of their desertion from the fight against tax evasion. Because they told us that multinationals would finally pay their taxes thanks to this famous minimum rate of 15%. Except that this rate is barely higher than that of the tax haven that is Ireland, it is three times lower than that of France in the 1980s and far from the 25% that we propose with NGOs. Except that a lot of companies are excluded from the scope. Except that some activities and some countries will not be affected. In short, it's a lot of "except". And for McKinseys and other tax looters, we went from open bar to happy hour. Certainly, the size of champagne glasses has decreased a little, but there is still a long way to go. Of course, we win a cultural battle; I remember a few years ago when I was working at Oxfam, where we were still a long way off. But, I say, ladies and gentlemen, let us move up a gear and impose a genuine universal corporate tax so that there are no more ‘excepts’ and that all companies finally pay their fair share of taxes.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are all appalled by the images of mass killings of civilians in Bucha. And first I wanted to have an emotional thought for their families and loved ones, even if, of course, no word can erase their pain. Our Parliament must take the oath here: We will not forget the hundreds of corpses that piled up in the streets of Bucha. I am also thinking today of the entire Ukrainian people who are suffering unspeakable atrocities but continue to heroically resist the Russian aggressor. I say it here with seriousness: this situation has a perpetrator, Vladimir Putin, who will have to pay for all these war crimes, for the rapes used as a weapon of war, for the carnage of Irpine, for the destruction of Mariupol, for the mass graves in Bucha. In the face of barbarism, it is always our duty to oppose the law. The competent international courts must be seized to investigate and try these acts of pure inhumanity, which cannot go unpunished. The European Union must react in the strongest possible terms to Putin’s abuses. Additional sanctions must be taken to force him to put an end to his crazy war adventure. We've been saying this for a month, we need to type these oligarchs into the wallet even more. Only then can we weaken it sufficiently to force it to negotiate. And for this, it is not necessary to take a yacht, but all yachts. It is not necessary to take a villa, but all the villas. You don't have to take a few million, you have to take every billion. So, Mrs von der Leyen, I repeat our request: Why do you not require European tax havens to list all Russian oligarchs who hold assets, on pain of massive sanctions? At a time when Ukraine is at risk of bankruptcy, the European Union must also do everything in its power to ease Ukraine’s economic burden. The Ukrainian people cannot be condemned to the suffering of austerity and structural adjustments, which are in addition to those of the war. There must also be a clear, unconditional commitment to: Let's cancel the Ukrainian debt! It also took a war as serious as this to see how dependent we are on fossil fuels. And rather than replacing one polluting energy with another, let us finally accelerate the development of renewable energies, the only guarantee of our energy independence. Our continent is going through dark times today. Let us live up to the moment, according to the one and only compass that must guide our mandate: humanism, peace and the protection of peoples.

Madam President, do you know how much McKinsey, which carries out highly paid advisory missions to the French State, has paid taxes in France in ten years? The answer is as simple as it is shocking: zero. Not a penny. This state scandal once again illustrates the tax avoidance practices of lawless multinationals. Faced with this organised robbery, the French Presidency of the European Union dares to tell us that the problem will be solved with the international minimum rate of 15%. So, either our economy minister is a liar, or he has not understood anything about international taxation, because as it stands, the agreement, which is also very insufficient, will only make McKinsey pay a few tax crumbs, all in the United States. So yes, there is an urgent need to act against tax evasion, but the worst thing would be to give the illusion of having solved the problem while the McKinsey and Co. continue to plunder us. Beyond this agreement at a discount, I want to say to tax evaders: we'll get your money back, and we'll chase you to hell if we have to.

Madam President, spring has arrived, the trees are in bloom, and mercury is finally reaching 20 degrees in some places. This is the moment the European Commission has chosen to wake up to rising gas and electricity prices. Now I have to say that you surprised me: I quote the invitation from the Member States to 'regulate prices' and even to 'tax energy companies which have made exceptional profits'. A little ahead of time, I would almost believe in an April fish. Finally, would the European Commission have realised the absurdity of its energy market, which leads to only one thing: the explosion of prices for people and profits for multinationals? So why wait until the end of winter for these recommendations, given that prices had started to soar long before the start of the war in Ukraine? Well, as I read everything, I think I found the answer. In the annexes, you make it clear, Commissioner, that the competitiveness of the markets must not be called into question and, I quote you, the ‘general objectives of the European Union’s energy policy’. In short, it does not affect free and undistorted competition – prices may well continue to soar in the future. It was too good to be true. Moreover, only Italy has so far introduced a 10% tax on large energy boxes that have increased their profits. Still, there would be something to do. In Europe, the Commission is talking about 200 billion overprofits for energy companies. In France alone, Mr Beaune, Total made a record profit of EUR 16 billion, while people pay more than EUR 2 for their litre of petrol. So, don't go around the pot anymore: charge Total and block the prices of petrol, gas, electricity, but also all basic necessities.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to tell you about concrete realities, the litre of petrol which is increasing to more than EUR 2 without the State intervening, the overall energy bill which could increase by EUR 400 this year, hospital beds which have closed in the midst of the COVID crisis, unemployment benefits and pensions which are being reduced. A harsh reality for the peoples of Europe, a reality far from our Chamber and its sometimes lunar debates. All because states must follow the European Commission's austerity criteria and cut spending, rules so absurd that the Commission itself ended up suspending them to avoid chaos in the midst of a health crisis. The only thing that needs to concern us today, ladies and gentlemen, is how to get out of it definitively rather than organising their return by 2023. In the face of ecological and social emergencies, deficit and debt can no longer be the alpha and omega of European economic policies. And if you want economic convergence, I would have a few ideas: the well-being of people, the reduction of inequalities, the protection of the environment... Get out of your bubble, colleagues, and look at this reality to finally answer it.

Madam President, ‘Never forget that a political, economic or religious crisis will be enough for women’s rights to be called into question. These rights are never acquired. You will have to be vigilant during your life. With these words, Simone de Beauvoir was already alerting us. The march towards gender equality is constantly hampered and women’s rights are a constant struggle. This is particularly the case in times of war and in Ukraine, of course. First of all, I wanted to salute the courage of all those who engage in resistance, patrol at night, find themselves giving birth in the metro, their only makeshift shelter. Of all those, too, that keep society at the back. Not to mention women victims of unspeakable violence and the use of rape as a weapon of war. Ms Zaboujko, know that all women in the European Union stand by your side and are ready to lead the battle. The battle for peace, the battle also for the right to dispose of our body, quite simply. This war waged by a man, Vladimir Putin, symbolizes a power that imposes itself through fear and brutality. Women’s rights are always challenged in times of crisis and have been under constant strain in our countries in recent years. At the height of the pandemic, it was women – nurses, carers, cashiers, cleaners – who were mobilised as chore leaders, despite their low salaries. It was women, stranded at home during the lockdowns, who were the victims of an explosion of domestic violence. It is women who have seen their right to abortion sacrificed, with a terrible increase in care difficulties, when this right is not simply made illegal in some European countries. Simone de Beauvoir was right. These rights are never acquired and all the pretexts are good to put women's rights on the back burner or even to make them back. As fascism rises from the ashes, women's hate speech is back in Hungary, Poland and even in my country, France. The far right has not changed and will always make the trashing of women’s rights one of its priorities once it comes to power. But across Europe, more and more women and men are rising up to demand that women be able to live in peace and that their dignity be respected. In peace in their country, in peace at home, in peace at work, in peace on the street. I wanted to finish with these words from the women’s anthem: The time of anger, women, our time has arrived. Let's know our strength, women, let's discover thousands!" And I would even add, millions.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, protecting civil society also means protecting democracy itself, guaranteeing the possibility for the people to organise themselves into associations, trade unions and to demonstrate in order to exercise their share of power. We urgently need it as authoritarian temptation sets in – in Poland and Hungary, of course, where the ruling far right methodically crushes defenders of women’s, migrants’ and LGBTI rights, but also in my country, the country of human rights, where the repression of yellow vests has resulted in thousands of abusive police custodys and dozens of mutilated bodies. Climate, pensions, women's rights: All the demonstrators are already facing the same fate. "Freedom, equality, fraternity" have given way to "LBD, nasses and GAV". As rapporteur for the Committee on Legal Affairs, I am pleased to find many of my proposals in this text, to guarantee the funding of civil society organisations and protect them from attacks by governments and third parties. Democracy is a fragile good. Let's defend those who keep it going.

Madam President, Madam President of the European Commission, war is returning to Europe. I am part of this generation born after the Cold War, which has not experienced the war shock of the great powers and to which it has been repeated since childhood that Europe is peace. Now, the ghosts of the past are resurfacing and the war is back. I want to make it very clear here: Vladimir Putin bears full responsibility for this and now he has blood on his hands. Our group condemns in the strongest terms the intolerable military aggression against Ukraine and welcomes the heroic resistance of Ukrainians and their President Zelenskyy to the invasion. Tanks scold, bullets rain and civilians try to find shelter, fear in their stomachs, sometimes in the subway, sometimes on the roads of exile. I want to think about them first. Today, Ukrainians need to know that we will not abandon them. I want to say to President Zelenskyy, whom I thank for taking the time today to address our Parliament, that democracy and freedom, for which his people are fighting, are our values and precisely the haunting of Vladimir Putin. We must send emergency humanitarian aid unconditionally and welcome refugees, regardless of skin colour, without ‘but’, without ergoting. The crisis is humanitarian, but it is also, of course, more geopolitical than ever. Putin wants us to enter a world of chaos and brutality, where the rule of the strongest dominates. I say it here with solemnity: Ladies and gentlemen, dear President von der Leyen, dear President of the Council, we cannot accept to enter into a terrible game and to acknowledge that Europe is becoming a battlefield in the long term. I warn you, colleagues, against the military overbidding and arms race that would set our continent on fire and bloodshed. As Jean Jaurès rightly said, "one does not make war to get rid of war." On the contrary, the European Union must defend, whatever the cost, the only valid objective: peace and de-escalation. Strong and targeted sanctions are taken, but how do you really want to apply some of them, when ensuring the impunity of tax havens that hide the assets of Russian oligarchs? As such, fighting tax evasion also means fighting crime at international level. Let’s be clear, economic sanctions will only have time, because the people will suffer the consequences, in particular through price increases that must be compensated. As we all know, the only sustainable option is diplomatic and all our efforts must be directed towards a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian troops. The path of peace is certainly laborious, but it is the only reasonable one at this hour. NATO, a military alliance inherited from the Cold War, is not the solution. The international justice of the peace is not NATO; it is the UN. The space for discussing the continent’s security conditions is not NATO; it is the OSCE. The Ukrainian President outlined ways out from above, for example a UN-protected neutrality status; Let us accompany this possibility. I do not want to lie to citizens, there is no silver bullet. However, I have a deep conviction: the real firmness in the face of Putin is not to lock oneself into the vicious circle of ‘eye for eye, tooth for tooth’; On the contrary, hope comes from mobilising people for peace all the way to Russia. In Rostov-on-Don, just off the Ukrainian border in Russia, a young woman was sentenced to eight days in prison for standing alone on the street with a white sign, a symbol of a mobilisation that Putin wants to make invisible. It also symbolizes the courage of those thousands of Russians defying Putin’s fierce repression, echoing the hundreds of thousands of Europeans who adorn themselves with the Ukrainian flag with a message: peace at all costs. I will conclude with the words of Albert Camus, on 8 August 1945, just after the bombing of Hiroshima: "Given the terrifying prospects for humanity, we see even better that peace is the only fight worth fighting. It is no longer a prayer, but an order that must ascend from peoples to governments, the order to choose definitively between hell and reason.”

Madam President, Madam President, Commissioner, petrol, electricity, pasta, rice: Everything costs more. Across Europe, people are caught in the throat and some are taking the opportunity to already call on the European Central Bank to tighten the monetary screw, as if policy rates were still the determinant of inflation today. Before the pandemic, the ECB had already injected €4 trillion, with no inflation at all, as the financial bubble took almost everything, leaving only crumbs to the real economy. The current purchasing power crisis has nothing to do with money. It is due, on the one hand, to the voraciousness of energy companies, such as Total, which are accumulating historical profits by turning consumers into milk cows, and, on the other hand, to the chaos in globalised supply chains, which the pandemic has totally destabilised. You acknowledge this, moreover, Ms Lagarde: A rate hike, I quote, "would not solve any of the current problems." For once, I have to say that I agree with you. Turning off the tap, as after the 2008 crisis, would be a disaster. But in this context, I have a question for you: So what is the ECB’s main objective of price stability, which you defend so much, still today? As my colleague Papadimoulis' report points out, the ECB's role in dealing with the social and ecological emergency must be questioned. Mrs Lagarde, take this break and recast the ECB's mandate. Money is not a technical tool, it is a political lever. Europe can no longer be the only place where monetary policy is not democratically debated, so that it ultimately serves the real economic needs, not those of speculators of all kinds.

Madam President, Mr President, today you present yourself as the champion of Europe who protects, but who do you actually protect? Do you protect social rights when you pocket the unemployed and delay the Uberized Workers Directive? Do you protect sovereignty when you sign free trade agreements in turn? Do you protect women when you support an anti-IVG at the head of the European Parliament? You see, Mr President of the Republic, it is not enough to enshrine the right to abortion in the Charter of Fundamental Rights. It is still necessary to defend it and accept the extension of its duration when it is discussed in France. Or not to deal with states like Poland that are destroying this fundamental right to dispose of our body. Are you protecting the planet when you went to the extreme right of Orbán to defend gas and nuclear power? You see, here too, it is not enough to include the environment in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, when you are condemned for climate action in France or when you bury the proposals of the Citizens’ Climate Convention. Do you protect tax justice when you serve the Medef soup on tax evasion? Are you finally protecting the rule of law and democracy, which you talked about a lot this morning, when you are dealing with Orbán – Hungary was the place of your first visit as President of the Republic in charge of this presidency of the European Union – and when you mutilate the yellow vests? You see, Mr. President of the Republic, what you are protecting are certainly not people in trouble, but multinationals and billionaires. So you announce with great pomp, as we saw at the time of the presentation of the French presidency, a slogan: "Relaunch, Power, Belonging". But in reality, your European record is only "arrogance, impotence and shenanigans". In substance, you are the champion of compromises and double speeches, but in form, you have always been the president of contempt. Disrespectful of the social protection that costs, in your opinion, a "crazy pognon". Disrespect for the precarious who "are nothing". Disregard for the unemployed who ‘only have to cross the street to find work’. Disregarded of the "fainants", the "illiterate", the "refractory Gauls". And a contempt that is still expressed today towards your European partners, towards us, MEPs, when you choose to keep the French Presidency of the European Union in the middle of the electoral campaign. Yes, Mr President, you are the president of contempt, but at least you assume it. And as you summed it up, the people, you are pissing them off. The press has ripped off their hair to translate you. She did well, because you can address this insult in all languages to the people of Europe. Gender equality: ¡Vete al cuerno! Social justice: Scheiß auf sie! Climate: Facciamolo incazzare! Our fundamental rights: Piss off! But let’s face it, there are people you don’t bother. For example, your friends billionaires whose fortune doubled during your five-year term. This is what sums up the essence of your policy, Mr President: workers, precarious people, activists, insults and beatings; to profiteers and polluters, gifts and sweet words. Colleagues, don't be fooled: You have Dr Emmanuel in front of you, who has made a lot of promises today, I must admit, but you also have a Mr Macron, who is actually the one who is breaking our social rights, cracking down on mobilisations and has nothing to do with the climate emergency. So how can you believe that you will do in Europe the opposite of what you did in France? The French presidency should not be an election march. This is a historic opportunity to reshuffle the cards of the game. By a founding act, first of all: putting health ahead of profits by lifting the patents on COVID vaccines – a waiver that you have consistently opposed, Mr President. So the charity you are still talking about today does not make sense when millions of people around the world do not have access to vaccines because our country, France, but also the European Commission, has not respected the vote of this European Parliament to defend the lifting of vaccine patents! As a priority, then, Mr President: prevent the re-establishment of the shackles of budgetary austerity muted during this crisis. In your distant world, they may be only accounting lines, but in our real world, they are people, social aids for eating, public services for learning or healing. The French already said this in 2005 during the referendum: We don’t want these rules anymore. Because let's be clear-headed, if tomorrow we want to renationalize freight, ban pesticides, develop organic or local canteens, sanction European tax havens, we will have to face up to the European rules that prevent us from doing so, and I conclude on that. France is a founding country, the second largest economy in the European Union. It has the means and the duty to impose the principle of social and ecological non-regression so that a European standard will never again undermine our rights or slow down the fight against climate change. Quoting General de Gaulle is fashionable in these campaign times. So, in his words, it is to have a certain idea of France to dare – or even to have the audacity of which you speak, Mr President of the Republic. Dare to lead the way, dare to embody resistance to austeritarian and authoritarian dogmas. History will judge the missed opportunity of your French Presidency of the European Union, sacrificed on the altar of your personal ambition. But after the presidential election, there will be two months left to live up to the urgency and topple the table. By the popular will, after you in April, we will assume our responsibilities, Mr. President of the Republic.

Mr President, I propose that a chronometer be scrolled through during my speech. Every second, pharmaceutical companies will make a thousand dollars in profit. This is the jackpot. By refusing to lift the patents, Mrs von der Leyen, this is what you wanted to protect at all costs: Big Pharma money rather than our lives. Because the infernal circle has been the same for two years, when COVID-19 entered our lives. Two years after the outbreak, it has already claimed more than 5 million lives. Two years as the virus grows, spreads, mutates and returns to us like a boomerang, varying after varying, wave after wave, overwhelming our health services. For two years, Mrs von der Leyen, you have forbidden us full access to contracts with laboratories, even though they were financed by public money. For two years, you - the European Commission - have been ignoring calls from the WHO, the UN, a hundred states and even three times from our own Parliament to get vaccines out of the market. Two years, Mrs von der Leyen, that you are protecting the production monopoly of a handful of multinationals, rather than requisitioning their factories and skills and sharing them with the world. Two years you claim that it is useless because it would take months to open factories, but two years you push back the problem and waste time. Two years of selfishness in taking up the few doses available, while only 7% of the population has received a dose in poor countries. Two years, Mrs von der Leyen, you boast of your charity, again this morning, when the rich countries have still not given more than two thirds of the doses that have been promised. Two years that you continue to feed the sharks that are surfing this fifth wave and have taken advantage of it, like Pfizer, to increase their prices, making COVID-19 an opportunity like any other to accumulate cash. Two years that you put in parentheses our lives, our outings, our little happinesses, our links with our alumni to serve the Big Pharma. In short, two years that you protect at all costs their profits rather than our lives. In conclusion: Since the beginning of my intervention, the laboratories have earned more than $120,000 in profits and at the same time, COVID-19 has taken a dozen lives. So when do we stop this madness?

Mr. Speaker, we released the floor with MeToo, and then we threw our pork. We threw our pork in the cinema, we threw our pork in the literature, we threw our pork in the sport. We got up and broke. But you decorated the pigs. Even those who recognized the facts. Then we threw away our own family, adults who rape children, men who rape other men. We threw the actors, the musicians, the youtubers, the publishers. The Church and, more recently, the bars have also been thrown out. And now we're even swaying politics. But you made them ministers. Do not think that this has no cost for us. As soon as retaliation, intimidation, exclusion, insults, threats and harassment are thrown away. We are exhausted, but we are not afraid of you. We will continue to swing as far as it takes to end the impunity of the aggressors, as much as it takes to protect ourselves and win the respect that is due to us.

Mr President, blablabla, victory by K.-O. of the lobbies and . This is how COP26, which I attended, ended with a big flop, with a final image of unacceptable cynicism: the irresponsible people of this world who self-congratulate themselves on burying the planet with a suicidal trajectory of more than 2.4 degrees. No wonder we came to this when we see the omnipresence of lobbies in the COP. Imagine the decor: halls littered with logos, including J.P. Morgan Bank, which has invested 317 billion in fossil fuels, or Unilever, the third largest plastic polluter in the world. And among the participants, it is even worse: 503 representatives of accredited fossil fuel industries, more than all eight countries most affected by climate change. Just that. Ultimately, this COP was no longer a Conference of the Parties, but a Conference of Polluters. But as you know, lobbies would be nothing without their accomplices. In the first place, states like France, which act underhand to pass nuclear and gas for green energy. It had to be done, anyway! And just a few days after this COP, you find nothing better than to accept an agribusiness CAP that denies all our climate commitments. So, fortunately, not everyone is fooled here in this Chamber, but especially outside. In the streets of Glasgow during the COP, but also across Europe, young people are mobilising. And as you know, they do not say goodbye to the CAP, live the carbon market and live the finance, but vote this CAP downRefuse the CAP and get out of fossil fuels! I would also like to appeal to them here. Do not resign yourself, do not become cynical, keep the same strength and, most importantly, do not wait for others to take the decisions for you. Invade public debate, invest political institutions, take power. Do not denounce only those who burn the planet, replace them.

Thank you, Mr Boyer, I noted in your speech – and I am delighted about that – that you want the system to be extended to all countries in the world so that, finally, there is transparency about the activity of multinational companies around the world, including the most notorious tax havens. But I remember that during the negotiations on this text, the media revealed that France had literally copied and pasted its position on that of Medef and thus weakened the negotiations at European level since the red lines that had been established by Medef were found word for word in the final text. So I have a pretty simple question: Is it a coincidence that these are exactly the same flaws that we find in the final text? And if I wanted to be a bit provocative, did the Medef also write your position and your text tonight?

Madam President, tax evaders are like bats, they hide in darkness. For Google, Amazon or BNP, it’s ‘let’s live happily, let’s live hidden’. And it is to get them out of their den that we have been fighting for years for the transparency of the tax arrangements of multinationals. At the time of the first vote, in 2017, I was not in this Chamber, but in front of Parliament with my colleagues from Oxfam: We had organized a punch action. Our expectations were high and it was to lead the fight against tax evasion that I became involved in politics. But let’s be clear, they have been far from satisfied. So, of course, this is the first victory wrestled thanks to the fierce struggle of my colleagues in civil society. But I'm telling you frankly, I'm fed up with the fact that we're still just taking small steps. For God's sake, why does Parliament have to give in before it has fought the battle to the end? This agreement leaves aside 80% of the states. You call that transparency? For most of the well-known tax havens – Switzerland, the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands and so many others – there is nothing, nada, walou, not a piece of information. Tax avoidance schemes therefore still have a bright future ahead of them. And it is not surprising when we know that France has again – and this time obviously – modelled its position on that of Medef to empty the text. But I tell the tax evaders: Do not rejoice too quickly, the fight continues. We will organise as many actions as necessary in this Parliament and outside so that you finally give back the money.

Mr President, Bolloré, who attacks all-va journalists and NGOs as soon as they talk about his affairs. Darmanin, who is filing a complaint against Philippe Poutou for observing that police officers kill each year in France. The Polish far right, which is bringing more than 50 lawsuits against the newspaper that denounces its abuse of power. Vinci, who has taken Sherpa three times to court for denouncing his use of forced labour on World Cup sites in Qatar. Are these big bosses and politicians seeking justice? No, no. They abuse justice to weaken, intimidate, stifle voices that denounce abuses. This trend is deeply worrying, because when the greats of this world hijack justice to silence any criticism, it is democracy that they are gagging. Our duty is to protect all those who dare to challenge them – associations, researchers, trade unions, citizens, journalists – to defend whistleblowers as soon as possible and to penalise harassers. The report we are going to adopt goes in the right direction and incorporates many of the proposals my group has fought for. But I have a message for the Commission: we will not let you go so that you do not parade and so that we finally put an end to these SLAPP procedures. Justice cannot become the watchdog of power, because democracy is only a fiction when the law is at the service of the powerful.

Madam President, far-right attacks on democracy must be at the heart of the debates at the next European Council. What is happening in Poland is the result of a carefully prepared operation to destroy democracy and the rule of law. By putting the judges to the test, the far-right government is giving itself almost full powers, and it is doing so with a very specific purpose: have a free hand to harass LGBTI people, muzzle opposition and prevent women from aborting. This drift is very serious. And the Polish government is making a diversion by agitating the thorny debate on the primacy of European law over constitutions. Mrs von der Leyen, I listened to you yesterday and the days before. Let me tell you that you fall into their trap by going on this ground to claim an unconditional and absolute primacy that does not exist in practice. The stakes are not there. No, European law does not always take precedence over national constitutions and I believe that we should establish a principle of non-regression so that European rules can never lead to a loss of social and ecological rights at national level, as is all too often the case. But yes, democratic principles and fundamental rights must be inviolable in Europe. So we need a political response, and here I am questioning the responsibility of all those who participated in the witch hunts launched by the far right. It is not the Muslims or the immigrants who put us all at risk, but the reactionary apprentice dictators: Morawiecki in Poland, Orbán in Hungary or Janša in Slovenia and those they inspire, such as Zemmour and Le Pen in France. When states refuse austerity, you immediately put the knife under their throats. But when the far right destroys democracy, you look down, that's enough! Stop procrastination once and for all and finally take the necessary sanctions against the far right. I also raise the alert on another top priority: financing the ecological and social bifurcation. Europe is about to give lessons to the whole world at COP26 by pretending to be the climate champion, but it stubbornly refuses to get the money where it is to act, as in the case of the trillions hidden by the Pandora Papers thieves in tax havens. And you missed a golden opportunity to stop multinational tax evasion by giving your whitewash to a minimum corporate tax rate of only 15% internationally. This rate is a disgrace, as it is barely higher than that of notorious tax havens like Ireland, while a rate of 25%, for example, would have allowed us to recover at least €120 billion more each year. Result: Multinationals are rubbing their hands and there is a risk of further accelerating the global race for tax dumping. So what are you waiting for to finally recover the stolen money from tax evaders? This is the absolute condition for launching the major climate project and combating inequalities. Everything else will be the eternal chorus: words and words and words. Let me say one last word on energy prices: you will not solve the problem of soaring prices until you get out of the logic of the market, where speculators and shareholders get rich while people pay their profits. So, please, for people, let’s put the market logic aside for once and have the courage to organise an EU-wide price freeze on energy and basic necessities.

Madam President, today there is a pandemic that is causing terrible damage, but which the European Commission ostensibly ignores in its 2022 Work Programme: This is poverty. And the explosion in energy prices for which you are directly responsible is the drop in water that can drive millions of people into misery. So, as usual, you waited first, you said: “It’s not my fault”. Then you were forced to suspend your absurd rules that prevent public price control. But you also warned that you wouldn't change the problem: energy will remain a commodity like any other, that is all. You are not at your trial. It reminds me of the beginning of COVID, when it was necessary to help people hold on. The Commission first told the States: "Get out of the way!". And then she was forced to concede that she could deviate a bit from her cherished rules of austerity and competition at all. But then again, only temporarily, of course. It is the same story over and over again with climate change and the terrible floods that have ravaged entire regions in Europe. You shed a few crocodile tears and swore, hand on heart, that ecology was the challenge of the century. But you have refused to change any comma of your climate law, which will not comply with the Paris agreements. The scheme is now known: you create iniquitous rules, you exonerate yourself from any responsibility when they create chaos, you put them temporarily in parentheses when it is already too late, after which you strengthen them instead of permanently getting rid of them. I remember, however, that a year ago we said ‘never again’ – never again this austerity that destroyed our hospitals, never again this free trade that prevented us from producing masks, never again this poverty pay for the first chore. A year later, all these promises were forgotten. Because your work programme is similar to the previous ones. Hurry up! Let's restore the 3% deficit rule. Hurry up! Let us return to the prohibition of State aid. Hurry up! Let us sign more and more free trade agreements. Hurry up! Let's further expand the carbon market. You'd better go back to reason and learn from your failures. Let's get rid of your obsessions of the past. Let’s turn the page on the neoliberal gospel to address everyday concerns: How to pay your bills? Breathe healthy air? Offering a future to your children? This is what millions of Europeans expect in 2022. In short, finally reconnect with a little hope.

Madam President, I have been fighting tax evasion for ten years and I no longer count the scandals I have followed: , the last, the , , , , , , , ... The list is endless. I tell you frankly: She's giving me rage. The rage that a handful of privileged people continue to rob us before our eyes. The rage that nothing has been done, whereas the same solutions have been repeated in a vacuum for ten years. You know what all these cases have in common? Almost none of the states involved are on your blacklist of tax havens, which was updated yesterday. We could have thought: Here, for once at least, they're going to pretend to supplement it a little on the margins. No, no. Worse. Imagine the scene: all European finance ministers meet two days after one of the worst tax evasion scandals in history and they find nothing better to do than remove three states from this already almost empty list, including Seychelles, which is at the heart of the European Union. Pandora Papers. Frankly, how dare you, after that, come here to the European Parliament to defend this blacklist, which is in fact a carte blanche for tax evasion? This is unbearable! But at bottom, it is not even surprising, because those who are supposed to fight this scourge are too often tax evaders themselves, like the 35 heads of state who are wet to the neck in the Pandora Papers. But I do not resign myself and I tell you clearly by quoting a singer also pinned in the Pandora Papers: ‘Whenever, personally’. We will find tax evaders wherever they are hiding and make them pay.

Madam President, while billionaires have never been so rich, millions of Europeans will not even have the means to heat up or light up this winter. Plus 57% increase for the gas price in France, plus 37% for electricity in Spain, plus 40% for Italy this year: no European country is spared. If you don’t have to worry about paying your bills, just imagine what it’s like to be scared to see your electricity cut off because you can’t pay it anymore. And contrary to what you said, Mrs Simson, you are directly responsible for it. Yes, you, the European Commission and all those who, like you, want to commodify everything. I have a little riddle for you. Who said and guaranteed, I quote, ‘that the energy market would make it affordable’? You, the European Commission in 2019. And you've been telling us the same shit for years. Barroso boasted its added value in 2007 and Juncker its modernity in 2017. It's been 15 years and that's the result. Since you privatised the energy market, prices have almost doubled. And once again, it is the poorest who will pay the bill, while the shareholders of EDF, Total or Engie binge on nearly 10 billion dividends. You are still talking, Mrs Simson, about respecting the sacrosanct European rules in this context, but how dare you? I'm sorry, but these are the very ones that led us right into the wall. You have definitely not learned anything. Energy should be a common good, accessible to all, but you have made it a product like any other, on which we speculate and make profits. Heating or feeding should not be a luxury: it is a fundamental right. Our Left Group in the European Parliament is proposing an immediate price freeze on energy and basic necessities. Every effort must be made to reduce bills, starting with lower taxes and progressive rates. Learn from your failures, get out of any market that takes us right into the wall, allow states to renationalise the energy sector and keep a lasting grip on price control, put the package on the renovation of the millions of thermal sieves that are driving up energy consumption in the most precarious households, finally act. Rising energy prices are your political choice, but you can stop it: either you continue to serve the interests of a handful of shareholders, or you finally wake up to help millions of people in trouble.

Mr President, ‘Did you enjoy it?’, ‘Did you wear a provocative outfit?’, ‘Did you look for it?’, ‘Was your love too passionate?’: These are the kinds of questions police officers ask victims of sexual assault in French police stations, when they do not simply discourage them from filing a complaint, or even take the opportunity to flirt with them. Victims are treated as guilty and for these women, it is double punishment. First brutalized by violent men, they are then once again abused and humiliated by the very institutions that are supposed to protect them. How many of them have not filed a complaint, discouraged by this institutional sexism? How many have preferred to remain silent for fear of insidious, guilty and sexist questions? From the police station to the court, women's voices are systematically challenged, diminished, ignored, even in the allocation of custody rights, which forces nearly three-quarters of abused mothers to share parental authority, allowing violent fathers to pursue their strategy of intimidation, isolation and control. We can no longer deal with this double penalty. As this report calls for, it is essential to train police officers and judges, increase the budget for the protection of victims and finally take into account the violence of the spouse for the custody of children. It is these failures of public action that guarantee the impunity of the aggressors. Domestic violence will not stop as long as the police are sexist and the justice system is complicit.

Madam President, in the race against tax evasion, fraudsters are always one step ahead, especially when states refuse to go turbocharged and collaborate. As soon as a new rule is put in place, these white-collar offenders always invent a way around it. The latest example is the LuxLetters scandal, which shows how large consulting firms have colluded with Luxembourg to hide their gifts from multinationals from their neighbours. To prevent such scandals, transparency is a key element, not just between states, as shown by the limitations of these DAC directives. Because tax evaders are like vampires: They hate the light. But under pressure from employers' lobbies and with the complicity of the French government, the text on tax transparency has been largely weakened. So you, who are usually so quick to hold governments to account when it comes to cutting or privatising our public service budgets, would be better off using the same firmness with those who steal from us on a daily basis. Finally, attack the tax evaders. Their impunity lasted too long.