Speeches

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Europe is today the scene of a silent tragedy that cannot be seen and yet will produce its effects and produce them today. In Europe, 30 per cent of minors under the age of 12 have already been exposed to pornographic content, with 80 per cent under the age of 17. These contents leave today - psychologists say it, they said it here in a colloquium we organised in the European Parliament -, these exhibitions, these images, these contents leave indelible traces in many of them. Today, even states that in our European Union would like to protect children from platforms that do their business on the destruction of their emotional lives are unable to do so, because these platforms defend themselves by sheltering behind European law to be able to continue their criminal activities. We say it can no longer be, and that is why I have proposed, in the forthcoming text on the protection of children from sexual abuse, to include exposure to pornography as sexual abuse, and that the fact that these platforms do not implement the existing locks to protect children should be considered the crime that this is. Ladies and gentlemen, it is our duty to move forward together on this subject so that European law is no longer the shield behind which those who endanger childhood and the spirit of childhood, its innocence, its balance and the preparation of tomorrow's adults are sheltered. Bernanos wrote that everyone must justify himself in the eyes of the child he was. I think our duty, and I hope it will be a common fight, is to defend this childhood spirit together. This is our commitment to the future and future generations.

Mr President, Boualem Sansal was arrested by the Algerian regime for one and only reason: for daring to speak, for daring to write. Ladies and gentlemen, if we are meeting this evening - and I am happy, we are happy, that it is at the request of all the groups in the European Parliament, showing the support of all the countries and all the parties in Europe - it is first of all to express our immense concern, because even today no one really knows what will be the fate of this immense writer and this freedom fighter. If we are meeting this evening, it is to say - Commissioner, thank you for the words you have spoken - that we are now waiting for the action of the whole of Europe to get Boualem Sansal out of this terrible situation. We have levers to act. Algeria receives development aid funds from Europe. Algeria maintains cooperation with many of our countries, and France at the forefront, which is infinitely favorable to it and which is in particular favorable to this failed regime which seeks to export its failures rather than solve them. I am thinking in particular of this Franco-Algerian agreement on migration issues, which it is finally time to denounce, as our political family has been calling for for a long time. What an immense admission of weakness it is for a government to imprison one who has only dared to criticize it! What an immense admission of weakness! And what about those who, from Paris, in the comfort of television sets where they risk nothing, have chosen to relay the charges against a writer who can not even defend himself, who can not even answer them? Colleagues, this case concerns us all. Boualem Sansal is a writer from France. He is a writer from Europe, not only because he applied for and obtained French nationality, but because he defends the freedom that Europe must hold if it is to survive. In one of his novels, he wrote: If one no longer believes in life and freedom, there is simply no longer any reason to live. It is time to show, by freeing Boualem Sansal, by all the means we have in our hands, that we still hold to this idea of Europe.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about competitiveness and, behind this difficult word, there is a concrete reality. This summer, when tourists, especially Americans, came to the Olympic Games in Paris, they were struck by the importance of their purchasing power when they arrived in the French capital, and for a very simple reason: In 2008, US GDP was the same as European GDP. Fifteen years later, in the aftermath of a financial crisis triggered by the United States and American banks, we are now 80 per cent behind the GDP of the United States of America. This is a sign that Europe is dropping out, that it is impoverishing itself. And for what reason? Because she gave up producing. While the Americans subsidize, we regulate. It's time to get out of this madness. I heard a Socialist colleague tell us that productivism must be renounced. But whether for agriculture, for industry, for fishing, for energy, we need to relearn how to produce. Producing is not a guilty word and, for that, we must liberate our businesses, liberate our farmers, liberate those who, everywhere, make the strength of our countries. We will not let the new European Commission pursue this strategy of degrowth, whether behind Mr Timmermans yesterday or - Mr President, we know this well - behind Mrs Ribera tomorrow. We will be at the forefront of ensuring that, at last, the voices of those who produce are heard all over Europe.

Madam President, in order to make a constructive proposal and in a spirit of unity, I would like to make this point of order on the basis of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union: I now propose that all our voting sessions take place in Strasbourg.

This is of course totally wrong, and those who will be able to listen to what Lena Düpont has to say and follow the work we are doing with our EPP colleagues will see it clearly. We stand up for ending illegal immigration in Europe. We do not want to distribute illegal migrants; we want to make sure they leave. This is the whole point of this work on the Return Directive, which we will be doing together with all our colleagues who are here. We put this debate on the table today, and we are proud to work to ensure that Europe builds an effective strategy together. It may be a difference that we have: a collective strategy to ensure that illegal immigration is tackled and that our states retain sovereignty over their migration policy.

Madam President, we do want to put the return directive back on the table, and because we have imposed this debate, the Left is screaming scandal. I could hear our colleagues in Renew, like Valérie Hayer, immediately shouting populism. Ladies and gentlemen, what world do you live in? Last year, of the expulsions decided by European countries, only 20% were executed on average – less than 10% in France. Why? Mainly because of our right. It is the law against the law. It is the law, often European law and court rulings, against our most fundamental principles, such as the right to asylum, that is in fact hijacked every day by the smugglers’ mafias, who use the vulnerabilities of our legal response. It is time to get out of powerlessness. If we do not do so today, it is the very idea of democracy that will be challenged in the hearts and minds of the citizens of our countries. It is time to finally react, so that our countries decide who returns and who settles on their soil, rather than letting others and these criminal mafias decide for us.

Madam President, we have learned that the European Commission, as part of the Erasmus+ programme, has recently renewed its partnership with a university in Gaziantep, whose rector and professors regularly speak in support of Hamas or accuse Israel of being the perpetrator of the worst crimes, I quote, 'in the history of humanity'. We know very well what all this means. We are proud, together with our group, to have put this crucial subject on the agenda of our plenary session and we debated it last night. Colleagues from the ECR Group in the same direction are proposing an amendment to denounce this scandalous funding. The only difficulty is that their amendment does not target the right university in Gaziantep. I therefore propose a simple oral amendment to correct the name of this university, so as not to target a university that would not be implicated. I read this oral amendment and I dare to hope that we will all be united on these benches and that no one will stand up for those who support Hamas today: Is concerned that, despite the deterioration of the rule of law and freedoms in Turkey, the European Union continues to subsidise institutions linked to the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, such as the Islamic University of Science and Technology in Gaziantep, which is associated with the Erasmus+ programme and has received a grant from the European Union of EUR 250 000, while its professors and staff regularly celebrate the actions of Hamas and other Islamic organisations.

Madam President, Commissioner, of course, it is late and we are now few in number, but together with our group we are here and we are proud to have imposed this debate, because it had to be posed, because the European Union today funds a university in Turkey that congratulates the martyrs of Hamas and declares that the Jews are responsible for the greatest crimes in the history of humanity. The left barely had time to pass by to tell us its outrage, and now it's gone. His outrage, not at this funding, but at the fact that we dared to ask the question. Is it too much to ask, Commissioner, that European taxpayers' money should not go to fund those who want to destroy what we hold most dear, most precious, the very principles on which Europe is founded? Is it too much to ask that we not arm our enemies when they want to attack us? What do Europeans who are victims of terrorism think? What can our fellow citizens of the Jewish faith think who, every day, are harassed by Islamism that plagues our own countries? What can they think of the fact that Europe is now financing those who would like to kill us? Well, ladies and gentlemen, we will not give up and we will stay as long as we need to, until finally this scandal comes to an end.

Madam President, what a surprise to hear our colleagues from the Greens, since just now, offer their condolences to all the employees in the car industry who are now losing their jobs. What a surprise, because for our part, we have been raising the alarm for years and we were already doing so when, with the Socialists, with the Members of Renew and the extreme left, you imposed on the European car industry these totally aberrant standards that are scuttling it today. Because that's what it's all about. There is no doubt that Europe will be forced to return to reality, but for the automotive sector it may be too late. That's what I said here three years ago. Well, here we are. The automobile is, let us remember, 8% of European GDP, 14 million jobs, 7% of employment in Europe, and it is above all the freedom of movement for so many of our fellow citizens. Of course, we must decarbonize the car, no one doubts it for a moment, but we must decarbonize by taking into account global issues and this Chinese competition, which we have rewarded with an unexpected gift, indeed, by placing our technological standards on the subject on which it was ten years ahead of us. European industry has put EUR 250 billion on the table and we are still demonstrating that we have tried to be right against reality. Already next year, in 2025, European car manufacturers, even as they face a huge crisis, will have to pay 16 billion euros in fines. And why 16 billion? Because Europeans don't buy enough electricity. It is the scuttling of our own industry, to the greatest benefit of China, which is watching us, enthusiastically, it is the first polluter in the world. This self-destruction must stop now and we must put back on the table now, Commissioner, these totally aberrant standards to come back to reason. This is how we will save the planet, our jobs and our strategic autonomy.

Mrs. Hassan, you just used the phrase "apology of Hezbollah and Hamas," as if in reality they were pretexts that Israel would use to wage a war against the Lebanese people or the Palestinians in Gaza. But the truth, Mrs. Hassan, you know, is that Hezbollah and Hamas attacked Israel. The question is very simple: Do you recognize Israel's right to defend itself and Israel's right to guarantee, in accordance with international law, the security of its citizens?

I would not like to be in your place and the one that will be retained for you in the history books. The truth is that this spiral of violence that is causing so many civilian casualties, indeed, in Gaza, but which is also at the origin of the biggest anti-Semitic pogrom of the 21st century, all this was triggered by Hamas, that is to say by the political force that you are unable to denounce because your bench neighbor, M.me Hassan was at a demonstration in support of Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader, in Amman, Jordan this summer. That's the truth, Mr. Smith. And the truth is that today, in our countries, those who are threatened, it is our fellow citizens of the Jewish faith who are attacked every day by this anti-Semitism on which you refuse to open your eyes. The fault is on your side and we will save Europe and its dignity in your place and against you unfortunately, Mr Smith.

Madam President, for almost 40 years now Hizbullah has taken Lebanon hostage and Europe has been slow to hear the courage of the Lebanese political forces in denouncing this threat, which is of direct concern to us, through terrorism, drug trafficking and large-scale corruption. What a shame! What a shame that political leaders in our countries, such as Jean-Luc Mélenchon, dared to deplore the death of Hassan Nasrallah, without even a word for all the peoples who had suffered this executioner. The truth, ladies and gentlemen, is that the war that he launched against Israel, the war that Iran wanted, is not that of the Lebanese people, and everything must be done to prevent civilians from falling victim to it on either side of the borders. At this crucial moment, we have our role to play: Finally, denounce any complacency towards this armed Islamist militia, which is not and will never be a legitimate political force, support the unblocking of Lebanese institutions and the election of a president, end the financing that fuels the Syrian refugee crisis, restore Lebanon's freedom and sovereignty, and support the Christian presence that is the identity of this country and the balance of the Middle East. This is the singular responsibility of Europe and our countries. We don't have the right to desert her today.

Madam President, thank you to Mario Draghi for coming here to present his report. A slow agony is what it promises to our continent, economically but also politically, of course, if we do not manage to get out of the torpor in which we find ourselves, in view of the speed at which our main competitors are advancing. A slow agony is also the feeling with which I come back from these months of campaign and so many meetings and exchanges. The business leaders, with whom we share the difficulties they face, make me think that today, without anyone having said it, Europe has changed its economic system. We have moved from an economic system, that of the market economy, in which the main challenge of a company is to satisfy its customers by managing its suppliers, to an economic system in which the first challenge of an entrepreneur is to manage regulation by seeking subsidies to achieve it. Dear friends, the bad news is that all this puts us in an extraordinarily dangerous situation. Because if we are no longer able to produce in Europe what we need, tomorrow it is our sovereignty that will be directly threatened. But the good news is that the problem is in our hands. To rebuild Europe's competitiveness, the primary goal is to do with our assets, and in particular with this nuclear energy that Mario Draghi has chosen to support in his report in a finally clear way, but also to get out of this absurd situation in which we keep putting balls at the feet of our own economic actors while they are able to produce what is most necessary for the prosperity of tomorrow. The fate of Europe will be at stake in our decisions in the years to come. Our problems and solutions are also in our hands and under our fingers, dear friends, on the voting buttons by which we will arbitrate the texts that will be submitted to us. Removing more rules than creating them is the challenge and the balance sheet that we must be able to ensure for our fellow citizens tomorrow.

Mr President, Mrs Strada said earlier: How to make the link between immigration and insecurity? The real question is: How can we not make the link between immigration and the violence that is rising in our countries? The illegal immigration that is at issue in Solingen, because we are talking about Solingen. And what happened there? He is an Islamist who entered our countries illegally, denied the right to asylum in Germany and yet, like so many others, has never been returned. Three dead. As always, political impotence paves the way for a very concrete tragedy. This impotence was organized by denial. Commissioner, you told us earlier that it was time to put our house in order and that we had to protect our borders from illegal immigration. However, three years ago, twelve Member States wrote to you asking for help to finance the physical infrastructure for the protection of Europe's external borders. You answered them, in this letter addressed to you, that Europe cannot become a fortress between barbed wire. This contempt, this silence, this denial of reality, is the one that leads us to the impotence of today. It'll take more than words now. It is time to act finally, to prevent Europe from falling into this situation of lasting crisis in which we find ourselves.

Mr President, Mrs Roose, I share your feeling. Today, in this aberrant debate, we are under attack because we have managed to get Europe to finally support our farmers. We are indicted because we would attack the climate. The truth, ladies and gentlemen of the Greens, ladies and gentlemen of the Left, ladies and gentlemen of the Macro, is that the attack comes from you: attack on our jobs, which have been weakened directly by the disastrous industrial choices you have made; attack on our sovereignty and independence, with your obsession with nuclear power; attack on our prosperity, with the programme of economic and agricultural decay that you will have continued to carry out, despite our warnings; Finally, attack the climate itself, because the climate is not endangered today by those who work and produce in Europe and who respect the most demanding environmental rules in the world. Two-thirds of global emissions are from ten countries, only one of which is European. The truth is that everything we have done, everything you have done to prevent Europeans from producing at home what we need, you have done to offer market share on our continent to those production models that most destroy the planet. We must return to rationality. Your responsibility will be immense. On 9 June, voters will vote and we will put Europe back where it is.

Mr President, even if the de-escalation that we all hope for is confirmed, the fact remains that Iran is a threat and will remain so. An existential threat to Israel that it has sworn to wipe off the map. A threat to Lebanon that it is taking hostage through Hezbollah. A threat to our countries, because yes, our countries are also targeted by Iran-funded Islamist terrorism. And of course, a threat to its own people, the Iranian people who fight with courage. But in the face of this threat, in reality, not everyone in Europe has their eyes open. We heard the far left again this morning seeking an apology from Iran, as it did on 7 October. Even more insidious, on 6 April, the French Socialist Party issued a statement calling on France to suspend, by means of an immediate embargo, all deliveries of arms and ammunition to Israel. To deny Israel the right to defend itself was to make Israel vulnerable to the attack that struck it on 13 April, a week later. And I ask Mr Glucksmann, since the same weapons were used to attack Ukraine: we have to defend Ukraine, do we have to disarm Israel? It is your responsibility to say today whether or not you support... (The Chairman withdrew the floor to the speaker)

Mr President, between 2015 and 2021, house prices in Europe rose by 40%, and according to Oxfam, this acceleration is four times faster than that of household income. This terrible situation in housing in Europe affects first and foremost the most vulnerable. The Abbé Pierre Foundation warns that the share of modest households that can no longer afford to pay their rent or borrow has increased by 20% over the last three years. Now, for many families in Europe, you have to choose between your roof and your food. This is where our debate on the energy performance of buildings comes in. Behind these few words, there is a new standard, a simple idea: all European buildings will have to be carbon neutral by 2050. On paper, a good intention, but hell is paved with good intentions. What this new rule means is that 35 million buildings will have to be renovated by 2030 – within the next six years. Commissioner, €275 billion per year: it is the Commission’s own impact assessment that quantifies the immense cost of this renovation – when the Commission managed to find 100 billion over 10 years from the already existing funds. New standards have already affected the rental stock in France, and the effect has been immediate. Since their introduction, the supply of rental housing has been almost halved. This time, the standards will also affect owner-occupiers, with, beyond the constraints of insulation and heating change, improbable standards on square meters of bicycle parking or on electric car charging cables. Obviously, we have managed to win an important battle by tabling an amendment to protect heritage, but that will not be enough to avoid a major environmental misunderstanding. Indeed, all studies show that massive energy renovation programmes have never served any purpose. The real key, if we want to decarbonise housing, is to electrify heating and massively produce decarbonised electricity, but the same environmentalists who want to impose this programme are those who vote against nuclear energy, and we have to look very far for consistency in all this. The fact is that, in the end, betting on "all-insulation" is aberrant. It is an economic and social disaster looming. But it is also a major political contradiction. Let us remember that Europe was built onOdyssey, on the adventure, told by Homer, of Ulysses who wanted to find his roof. If tomorrow we do not offer Europeans the home to which they are entitled, this will threaten the very idea of Europe.

Mr President, Commissioner, in 2023, US GDP grew five times faster than European GDP. We started from the same situation in 1980. Today, GDP per capita in France, in my country, is 40% lower than in the United States. We see that Europe is bogged down in economic stalling and the causes are very easy to know. They're simple. First of all, demographic fragility, but also the dropout from our education, the low investment in research and innovation and the cost of energy for the disastrous industrial choices we are paying for today. But more serious than anything, the crushing cost of normative complexity suffocates our businesses. We are not in Europe today dropping out because we would have found it stronger than we owe it. We are dropping out because those who work in Europe, those who produce in Europe, know that public constraint, the burden of burdens, the burden of taxation have become their first problem and their first danger. This is the major scandal. Politics must support those who work, but it has become their obstacle. To get out of decline, we need to rediscover this simple wisdom, that of freedom. And as long as we continue to make life impossible for those who work in our countries, we will continue to find the path of poverty and the way out of history.

Mr President, yesterday, 26 February, the Ambassador of Azerbaijan to the European Union, Vaqif Sadiqov, wrote: “Since 1992, Armenia has been ruled by bloodthirsty fascists. They will remain fascists until they end up in Erablur.” Erablur is the Armenian military cemetery to which Azerbaijani violence has condemned thousands of 20-year-olds in recent years. They asked for nothing but to live in peace on the land of their people. Today, Azerbaijan threatens the territory of the Republic of Armenia after Nagorno-Karabakh. Erablur is looking at us, too. If Aliev feels allowed, it is because after besieging a civilian population, after displacement and ethnic cleansing, after the aggression, the cluster bombs, the European Commission has declared him a reliable partner and bought him more gas. Why wouldn't he feel all allowed? Colleagues, it is time to finally act and understand that Europe no longer has the right to silence. It is time to tell Mr Sadiqov that Europe is not in Baku, that it is on the side of democracy and freedom, on the side of civilisation that we share with Armenia, that it is in this place where I have been and from which I have not returned the same. Europe is in Erablur.

Dear colleague, you say right now that the subject of agriculture should not be polarised, but do you remember when you voted for the Nature Restoration Act? And we were criticised in the EPP by you or by your colleagues because we were warning that this text would reduce the useful agricultural area in Europe by 10%? Do you remember when our delegation alerted you to the Farm to Fork Strategy, which you voted for? You say that we should not import the agriculture we do not want to produce. But remember voting for the agreement with New Zealand, which we did not vote for, because it will help bring to our soil tons of products that we do not produce at home: 30 000 tonnes of lamb, 20 000 tonnes of milk powder, developed with techniques that we refuse to our own farmers? It is also time to take stock of what everyone is assuming and to face up to the responsibilities of our respective groups. If we really want to defend agriculture, we owe it the truth.

Mr President, Commissioner, this may be one of the last debates we will have on fisheries during this mandate. Sad moment. Everywhere in Europe, fishermen, like farmers, say they can no longer work because of the current constraints, the avalanche of complexity that has been imposed on them. But the Commission, which refuses to listen, continues in the same direction, while in three days the Bay of Biscay will be completely closed to fishing. You present an action plan that would prohibit fishing techniques that are common and necessary in a very large number of sea areas. In France, for example, one third of the maritime area would be affected. All this is in addition to the Common Fisheries Policy. All this is in addition to the fisheries control regulations that we will have worked on during this mandate. Where is the regulatory coherence? Where is the scientific basis? Where is the impact assessment? The truth, Commissioner, is that we already import three quarters of the seafood we consume. Whatever we do against European fishermen, we will do against the cause of the environment and against the cause of protecting the oceans. And we say this in this report, thanks to our colleague Niclas Herbst, that it is absolutely essential that the mandate that has just come change direction radically. We will only save the oceans with European fishermen and never, never against them.

Mr President, I should like to go back to the substance, since the Council's conclusions refer to the reform of the Treaties, which is indeed indispensable. Let us return to the vote that our Parliament had a few weeks ago on a draft reform of the Treaties of the European Union. Le fait est que nous nous engageons, je le crois, exactement, dans la mauvaise direction, en voulant d'abord transférer toujours plus de compétences à l'Union européenne, comme une compétence exclusive sur l'environnement, en voulant créer la possibilité pour la Commission européenne de lever de la fiscalité à la majorité qualifiée, c'est-à-dire sans l'accord de tous les États membres – nous nous y sommes opposés, nos collègues de Renew et de la gauche l'ont soutenu – ou bien en voulant retirer aux États leur souveraineté sur leur mix énergétique qui est aujourd'hui garanti par les traités. It is basically a general weakening of the Member States that emerges with the idea of moving a large number of decisions from qualified majority to simple majority, or with the fact that the Council could not even take part in the decision on the composition of the European Parliament, which is not done in any democracy in the world. Colleagues, we are not here representatives of a federal state. We are an association of democracies and Europe's goal is to strengthen our democracies to make them more sovereign. Committing to the right direction is probably what citizens expect.

Mr President, I am taking the floor because, following this debate on the ‘Qatargate’, I am amazed to hear our colleague Mr Engerer, from the Socialist Group, attack the EPP, the European right, in the lead. I would just like to ask a few questions to Mr Engerer, who has conveniently left the Chamber: Which group belonged or belonged to all the persons now mentioned in the legal inquiry into ‘Qatargate’? To the Socialist Group. Which political party belonged to the Prime Minister of Portugal, who last month had to resign over a corruption case? To the Socialist Party. Which party belonged to the Prime Minister of Malta, under whose government a journalist was murdered for having investigated too closely the corruption cases affecting him and his relatives? To the Socialist Party! To which party does the Spanish Prime Minister, who came this morning in scandalous attacks, try to justify the corruption by which he tries to remain in power by ceding the fundamental principles of the law of his own country in order to be able to keep the fragile majority on which he relies? To the Socialist Party again. Colleagues, don't take moral lessons. Let us ask the real questions together, and in particular the question of NGO transparency, which is still not asked because your group opposes it. Yet this is where our institutions are today vulnerable.

Mr President, what an absolute sadness that we are now seeing Spain, such a great country hostage to such miserable and dangerous manoeuvres. In my country also, in France, we had an amnesty law after immensely painful historical divisions. But it was announced ahead of elections, not improvised after. It was debated in public with the citizens, not agreed in secret with condemned people. It was for the future of the country, not for the survival of a weak government. I have a very simple question to the Socialist colleagues here, to the friends of Pedro Sánchez. Did anyone of you defend this rupture of inequality among the Spanish people ahead of the vote of the Spanish people? This is a very simple question. And why are you Socialists always repeating that this is only an internal issue and nothing that concerns Europe? You have always been so vocal and so insistent when you were criticising Hungary or Poland about the rule of law. And indeed this is about the rule of law that we are speaking right now. The fact that law rules over politics and not short-term political interests over the legal order confirmed by the people, is the very basis of democracy since it was founded at the birth of the European spirit 25 centuries ago. And we are here because of this. Those of us who write the law, do not have any right to destroy it. This would have a name, this is called corruption. A final word to all the people of Spain who are defending now this rule of law and freedom, Queridos amigos españoles, ánimo. España no se rinde.

Madam President, Commissioner, this is a great day, because finally the European Union, which had long focused on the issue of competition and the regulation of the internal market, is committed to a common industrial strategy towards the decarbonisation of our continent. I believe that this vote will be an important moment and a moment, let me say, quite revealing too. We heard our colleague from the Green Group explain that the vice of this text was that it relied on energies from the past after alerting us to the urgency of global warming. Of course, we agree on decarbonisation, of course we believe in the need to move away from production models that have damaged our environment. But I think we can say together that our fellow environmentalists are not sincere when they talk about global warming. They are no longer there to answer – I am sorry, perhaps other colleagues will speak in turn – but when the Greens' priority on this text is to table an amendment to exclude nuclear power, perhaps it is this energy that our colleague referred to as the energy of the past, to exclude nuclear power from this European strategy for decarbonisation. Nuclear power is not an energy of the past. Colleagues, as you may know: Nuclear power now accounts for 25% of all electricity produced in the European Union, and is now the largest source of decarbonised energy in Europe. Drawing on nuclear power when pretending to defend the climate is actually demonstrating that we do not really believe in the climate emergency. It is to show that, in reality, what we are defending is first of all the decline of our continent, first of all the impoverishment of the whole of Europe, it is the end of industrial production in our European countries. And unfortunately, during this mandate you will have found many allies in your rearguard cause. I believe that the battle is finally won – and I have no doubt that it will be won – in this week’s vote. We have a duty to make sure that we defend the climate with science, with technology, with our engineers, with our technicians, with all those who know that it is in the progress of knowledge that we will save the climate, that we will preserve the environment and not in regression and degrowth.