What Manon spoke about.

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.

Mr President, deadly floods, apocalyptic fires, absolute heat record: Climate disasters were the scenario of films like ‘The day after’. But this summer, fiction has become a reality in Europe. We are no longer passive spectators of a disaster film, but we are living it. Climate change is already here. It's irreversible. He's brutal. And in case this life-size alert isn't enough for you, the IPCC report closes the discussion. We need to change everything, now, radically if we want to avoid chaos. The countdown is started, but you continue to ostrich. It already starts badly with your target of a 55% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, when it would take at least 65% to comply with the Paris Agreements. You might as well extinguish the fire with a garden sprinkler. On the method, then, you surpassed yourself. What is your miracle solution? Let the deal go. Eureka! No one had thought about it. Yet we have seen the triumph of the carbon market that companies have used as a license to pollute. As a result, industrial emissions have fallen by only 1% in ten years. But will you take it up a bit more by extending it to transport and buildings? And while we're at it, we don't have to deal with productivist agriculture and climate-related free trade agreements either. No surprise, finally, on whom will pay the bill? No, not the crazy finance or the poor multinationals that are the heart of the problem. But no, what you are proposing is the working classes, of course, who will see their bills skyrocket. Plus EUR 370 per year of petrol and EUR 420 of heating for these households, which are already the first victims of climate chaos. The alert launched by the yellow vests in France? Clearly, you have not heard of it. So, Mr. Timmermans, you're telling us: We need to act now. But you remain desperately trapped in your neoliberal software. And since you say you are open to alternatives, we will continue on our side to propose the only serious path: A social and ecological "Green New Deal" that breaks with this predatory economic system that destroys everything.

Mr President, in many European countries, abstention is on the rise. Many citizens say that politics is useless, that it no longer changes everyday life, that it is powerless in the face of lost work, at the end of difficult months, in hospitals that close. And frankly, when I sometimes hear our debates in this Chamber, I want to tell people who doubt that I understand them, because it is these concrete concerns that should guide only your political agenda and that of the Commission. How can we prevent the planet from literally burning even more, after temperature records approaching 50 degrees in Canada? How can climate change be mitigated to avoid the widespread chaos announced by the IPCC and already illustrated by Madagascar's climate famine? How to save threatened jobs, such as those of the 300 employees of the Fonderie du Poitou who burned their electoral card to denounce their abandonment? How can we help the most vulnerable who can no longer make ends meet when billionaires have seen their fortunes increase by 30%? Just imagine: If the SMIC in France had increased at the same speed, it would be 370 euros more per month. How can we stop the tax evasion of these ultra-rich like Bernard Arnault or these big multinationals like LVMH that plunder the revenues of our states? In short, how to respond to the two challenges of our time: the inequality crisis and the climate catastrophe? And how can we tackle those responsible, the neoliberal economic system that is destroying everything? A shot of green paint on a discounted climate package will not change the game. We need to tackle the structural problems of the European Union to get out of the all-market and all-profit that is depleting the planet and people. A symbolic taxation of multinationals and an already obsolete mini-recovery plan will have no impact. It takes fresh money to invest in the public service and trigger the green fork. The very essence of politics is to serve people’s demands. If you continue to despise them, don’t be surprised that they no longer respect you. So listen to the alert of citizens on civic strike. Because a democracy without voters is no longer a democracy.

Madam President, Mr President, today I want to talk to you about love, the happiness of loving whoever you want, wherever you want, whatever your gender or sexual orientation. Do not have to hide, justify or be afraid, and have a heart that beats 100 per hour, just out of passion, not out of fear of being targeted. Ms von der Leyen, Mr Michel, I thought that in Europe, in 2021, we would not allow this simple and fundamental right to love to be called into question. However, this is the case in Orbán Hungary, where a shame law that associates LGBTI people with pedocriminals is now in force. Mere convictions are no longer enough, it takes action to demonstrate to every European citizen that we will defend them at all costs. Orbán is far from being at his trial. It has been challenging the separation of powers and freedoms for years. And this is almost always Europe’s radio silence. At each Council, and still today in your speeches, it is the same comedy. The European Union is worried, moved, outraged, but let it happen. She frowns, yes, makes big eyes sometimes, raises the tone, but never rages. And this impunity is jurisprudence. Slovenia, which is taking over the presidency of the EU, is attacking freedom of the press and opponents, like our comrades in Levica. Poland is challenging abortion. And that is Europe’s radio silence. The far right is jubilant about your cowardice. Orbán taunts us by publishing his propaganda in the complicit newspapers as The Figaro, and his authoritarian friends dream of a brown alliance to defend their disastrous project. Your inaction encourages them to go further. So today, yes, it is true, we hear the word ‘sanctions’ timidly. But you know, as I was talking about love: In love, only the evidence counts. So if you like the rule of law so much, why wait and stubbornly refuse to apply the necessary sanctions immediately? Every week lost is an insult to those homosexuals who fight to keep the right to love, to women who fight to keep the right to abortion, to journalists who resist to keep the right to inform. Your false naivety is not an excuse, but an accomplice cowardice. It is time to send a clear message: We won't let anything pass, we won't let anything pass.