Speeches

Mr President, all the interferences in Moldova are intolerable, all of them, like the one that consists, ten days before the Moldovan presidential election, whenme von der Leyen goes to Kichinev, promising 1.8 billion euros. Similarly, in August, President Macron, the German Chancellor and Donald Tusk went to Moldova to support Maia Sandu and influence the legislative elections in September. In both cases, the message is clear: Vote Sandu and you will have money from Europe. All manipulations are intolerable. What to say when a referendum is won with extreme accuracy thanks to the vote of the Moldovan diaspora abroad, and this Moldovan diaspora in Russia has not been able to vote, where 500,000 Moldovans live? All justice must be fair. What to say when a governor, that of Gagauzia, takes seven years in prison, simply to be of a party that is no longer accepted in Moldova? All interference must be denounced, including from this Chamber.

Madam President, as in Georgia, the European Union chooses, in Serbia, to encourage chaos, where it should instead support a democratically elected government. For nine months now, Serbia has been facing a wave of demonstrations whose nature is no longer peaceful. A disorder that affects the majority of the population, captive to the violent and organized behavior of a minority. 23,000 illegal rallies, 12,000 roadblocks, 750 attacks on political premises and already 170 injured police officers. It is no longer a classic democratic protest. This is violence directed against the state and its institutions. An attempt to change a government. In the face of this, the Serbian government has multiplied its gestures of openness. A dialogue was offered to the students. President Vučić even proposed a consultative referendum on confidence in his mandate as well as early elections. Each time, the demonstrators, stuck in sterile postures, refused these proposals. Because behind these movements are radical elements and politicized NGOs whose agenda is not the democratic and peaceful reform of the country, but the destabilization of Serbia through geopolitical calculations. President Vučić was elected with more than 60% of the vote. As such, its mandate and majority are clear, legitimate and democratic. Brussels must stop harassing this country under any pretext. This resolution is a new interference against a democratically elected government, but one that you do not like.

Mr President, three years after the attack on the Nord Stream, the truth is finally beginning to be decided. It was not mere sabotage, but a terrorist act against Europe. The Hungarian Foreign Minister was very clear on this subject, saying on 26 August: The sabotage of the Nord Stream shows all the characteristics of state terrorism. Recall that initially a media campaign accused Russia. Then Denmark and Sweden quickly closed their investigation, embarrassed, refusing to go further. Today, only Germany continues. With the arrest of the main suspect, Serhii Kuznetsov, in Italy, we discover a man suspected of having coordinated the operation and who would have worked for a very long time for the Ukrainian special services. How can the European Commission continue its indiscriminate support for Kiev, when it is now very likely that Ukraine has thrown its stunts at our strategic infrastructure? As a result, we are deprived of cheap gas and Europe has turned to American dependence. Mme von der Leyen promised us in 2022 a firm response to these attacks. And if ultimately the culprit was Ukraine, what would we do?

Mr President, media freedom does not allow for all excesses. Nor is it a permanent alibi for foreign interference. This is precisely what the European Parliament is doing in this debate. Mme Amaghlobeli is being prosecuted for physically assaulting a serving police officer on 12 January and, in accordance with her country's laws, she will be tried at the next hearing of her trial. This scandalous political instrumentalization of a criminal case hides the European Union's obsession with Georgia and above all Brussels' contempt for the right and sovereignty of this people. Be clear, you just want to overthrow the Georgian government and all the pretexts are good. Four European Parliament resolutions against Tbilisi in less than a year are relentless. A relentless and repeated interference that Georgians have been subjected to for more than twenty years. For we no longer count NGOs, foundations, the media financed by foreign interests and whose only agenda is the destabilization of Georgia. George Soros and his network, for example, have never hidden their willingness to influence Georgian politics. Its foundation, the Open Society, has poured 85 million euros into the country since 1994, including nearly 5 million in 2019 alone. Everyone knows that this massive funding has been injected into militant structures and, under the guise of journalism or human rights, is intended to weaken the institutions of this country. Georgians no longer have orders to receive from anyone, either from Moscow or Brussels.

Mr President, in February our Parliament adopted a resolution on the crisis in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, making it very clear that Rwanda is responsible for this tragedy which has lasted for 30 years. Four years later and some symbolic sanctions after, the Democratic Republic of Congo has completely disappeared from the European Union's concerns. But four years later, Kagame and his militias continue to occupy, loot and massacre part of the DRC. Why? Because Kigali openly mocks us and our cowardice, unless they take advantage of our complacency. Yes, the EU makes fun of the Union. Yes, the EU is making fun of the Congolese, because for Ukraine, we are capable of being in the 18th wave of sanctions – for Congo, a single wave of sanctions, which in reality has yielded no results. In the DRC, corpses and evidence are piling up, but Brussels is looking elsewhere. All this ridiculous comedy must stop, because more than 100 million Congolese are watching us and waiting for the European Union to really sanction Mr Kagame and those around him who are the only ones responsible for this massacre.

Mr President, against Serbia, this House no longer knows what to invent. Now you report on the reports. But this latest report on Serbia is more about ideological indictment than objective assessment. Yet Belgrade has committed no crime, except that of not thinking like Brussels, or rather of refusing to sanction Russia and above all, supreme sacrilege, of not bowing to Pristina's whims. This text accumulates moral lessons, political injunctions and biased criticism, while the 2023 and 2024 European Union reports on Serbia praised instead its economic success with strong growth and falling unemployment. The reports also noted technical progress in 31 of the 34 negotiating chapters and a clear commitment to the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue. Moreover, I note that this resolution completely turns a blind eye to the anti-Serb violence in Kosovo. Two weights, two unbearable measures. When Serbia defends its own, it is an immediate condemnation. When Albin Kurti flouts minority rights in Kosovo, Brussels looks aside. You have to tell the truth: You want to make Serbia a submissive, aligned, obedient student, but Serbia is a free nation. It defends its interests, it refuses injunctions and it claims its sovereignty. What shocks you, I find it normal. Accession to the European Union must not be an instrument of geopolitical blackmail, or, frankly, let it be said that the European Union does not want a country that thinks otherwise. For my part, I will always defend the freedom of peoples who must freely choose their destiny.

Madam President, on 13 February 2025, 70 Christians were savagely beheaded in a church in Kasanga, Democratic Republic of Congo, by the Allied Democratic Forces, a radical Islamist group linked to the Islamic State. This massacre is not isolated: It is part of an endless war, which since 1998 has killed more than 8 million Congolese, including many children and women. In the east of the country, the regions of North and South Kivu are plunged into chaos under the assaults of armed groups such as the M23, which rapes, loots and massacres. The main culprit of these massacres, these disorders, for years everyone knows him: This is Paul Kagame’s Rwanda. He is the one who launched his bloodthirsty army and his deputies against the populations of Goma and Bukavu, where millions of Congolese are taken hostage. It is he who plunders the DRC’s mineral resources and flouts the country’s sovereignty. So, after first timid sanctions, what is the EU waiting for to sanction Kigali even harder? For Ukraine, the EU is already in its sixteenth wave of sanctions in three years. But what are we waiting for visa sanctions, for the freezing of Rwandan assets in Europe, for nominal sanctions against Kagame and his entourage? Commissioner, I do not have the same information as you. Everything continues as before in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and there is no truce. In particular, at the European Commission, you must immediately denounce the agreement on minerals, signed by Rwanda, whose inefficiency your officials have publicly acknowledged. All this immobility becomes suspicious. We will end up believing that the European Union is protecting Kagame.

Madam President, it is official: From Paris to Bucharest to Republika Srpska, the European Union is accompanying the democratic death of Europe. Marine Le Pen's unjust and totalitarian condemnation sadly echoes that of Milorad Dodik, President of the Bosnian Serb Republic. Through him, the Republika Srpska is attacked judicially and politically. Milorad Dodik, who was democratically elected, has just been sentenced to one year in prison and six years of ineligibility in an externally guided political trial. At this stage, the judiciary in Bosnia and Herzegovina is no longer independent: it is an instrument of repression in the hands of Sarajevo, an instrument that acts under the pressure of Christian Schmidt, high international representative, who behaves like a colonial governor by annulling laws and violating the popular will expressed in the ballot box. Obviously, Brussels lets this authoritarian farce unfold, orchestrated against a legitimately elected president, thereby proving that its indignation is selective and that it tramples on the right of peoples to self-determination – in particular that of the Serbs. Republika Srpska and its people deserve neither ignorance nor humiliation, but respect.

Madam President, on the eve of 1 April the Commission decided to hold a debate on democratic pluralism. Frankly, you have a taste for humor and timing: start by reacting to the scandal surrounding the conviction of Marine Le Pen. I am surprised that the Commission, always quick to denounce the abuses of the world, is so silent when the hammer of injustice hits our continent to prevent democracy from expressing itself. In France today as in Romania or in the United States, justice has become the favourite tool of an oligarchy that acts against peoples. In France, she has just gagged the voice of 11 million French people, while all serious polls place Marine Le Pen largely ahead of the next presidential election. This is an outright political assassination, a serious hindrance to democratic life, and one whose European impact is certain. We also see that Brussels takes a mischievous look at all these convictions, since they are its life insurance policies. Stop applauding the censors of the people and take care of the real cheats, those of your majority, those of "Qatargate". Are you talking about democratic pluralism? I see a totalitarianism moving forward.

Madam President, of course we must fight corruption and those responsible for the tragedy in Novi Sad must be identified. But the European Parliament stands out once again for its hypocrisy: as a zealous agitator, he precipitates a debate that only concerns Serbia's internal affairs in order to better conceal his silence on the attacks on the Serbs in Kosovo. In January, for example, Socialist Prime Minister Albin Kurti shut down ten Serbian municipalities, signing an additional act of political harassment and a frontal attack on the rights of the Serbian population in that territory. On 9 February, a few weeks before the general election, the Kosovo Central Electoral Commission, under Pristina's orders, tried to ban the main Serbian party from running in the elections. So, after physical violence, administrative burdens and institutional discrimination, for Kosovo Serbs, the cut is full. They know that these coups are part of a devious ethnic cleansing that has been going on for four years and on which the European Union is turning a blind eye. These injustices and violence must stop and it is time for the European Union to admit it, for us too to give up our repeated interference by constantly judging and criticising a democratically elected government that has the right to conduct its policy, even if you dislike it.

Mr President, Commissioner, this is not a humanitarian crisis. It's been going on for 30 years. Thirty years! We received in these walls the Nobel Prize and Dr. Denis Mukwege, who alerted us by saying: "Women, men and children are falling like flies in Kivu." And already in 2008, in this Chamber, a resolution was passed for an exactly similar crisis. Except it's not a crisis. It's been going on for thirty years. And we haven't done anything for thirty years. We've been saying for thirty years that we're going to send trucks to save people and everything. What is needed today is to tackle the roots of evil. But the roots, we know where they come from. We know very well that there is a neighboring country that, in reality, participates in the plundering of the DRC's revenues and mineral resources and sells some of these minerals back to us. We now know who is an accomplice: It is the European Union. The European Union, as you know, signed a treaty, or rather an agreement, on 19 February last year to buy back these stolen minerals. And it is since September that I have been asking for a special commission on this subject. Nothing. I heard we were going to do it next week, behind closed doors, without translation. Then you know what to do. What we need to do is urgently cancel the minerals agreement that binds us to Rwanda. It is suspending the security partnership we have with this country. It is blocking the payment of the additional 20 million euros promised by Europe last November under the European Facility in Rwanda. This is to strongly condemn the massacres and abuses and to take concrete sanctions against those responsible, who are largely in Rwanda. That's what we're waiting for. It is not to pass a new resolution in five or ten years.

Madam President, a death sentence is a sentence that our Parliament cannot accept. But let us not forget that the Democratic Republic of Congo is a sovereign state, with sovereign justice. With regard to this coup attempt, the DRC had to deal with a serious attack on its democratic institutions. In addition, Mr. Wondo is convicted at first instance, and he has just appealed. The Congolese justice system has therefore not yet delivered its final verdict. So, frankly, why is this Parliament rushing into interfering in a judicial matter that is in no way within its competence? You will allow me to doubt: Is this not to hide its inconsistencies? Because, while we are debating a personal case here, Kinshasa is facing a deadly war in the East, in Kivu, where the M23 militias in Kigali’s pay are slaughtering the population and taking over territories. And what has the European Union done? She signed with Kagame, this Rwandan dictator, re-elected very democratically with 99.18% of the vote, criminal agreements to plunder critical raw materials in the DRC. Europe says nothing about this latent war. For the past 20 years, Brussels has been turning a blind eye to a situation that, in the end, does it well. Unless we soon discover, in this Parliament or in the Commission, a ‘Rwandagate’ after the ‘Qatargate’. Today, you are seeking justice for this alleged coup plotter – it is your right. I demand justice for the hundreds of thousands of Congolese dead who have been drowning in the blood of European interests since 1998, and whom we cover with our complicit silence.

Mr President, ‘Brussels must do more to support pro-European forces.’ This debate mirrors the outrageous remarks just made by the chairman of the Bundestag’s Committee on Foreign Affairs. But what right do you think you have to influence the democratic choices of a sovereign people? Because these words are not the words of dialogue and mutual respect that nations deserve, but an admission of interference illustrating European arrogance. In Georgia, the people spoke, just the people. Moreover, the OSCE confirmed this in its report of 20 December 2024: no foreign interference is mentioned, none. On the other hand, since the re-election of Georgian Dream, Brussels has increased its interference to refuse the choice of Georgians. And what about the violence you silently condone – more than 150 Georgian policemen injured? In Tbilisi, the European Union is not the protector of democracy, but the accomplice of chaos. This country is free, stop caricaturing it. Georgians want Europe, but a Europe that respects their choice, because, after the Soviet Union, Georgia does not want to become a colony of Brussels.

Madam President, Rule 10 of our Rules of Procedure stipulates that Members shall preserve the dignity of Parliament and shall not damage its reputation. I would therefore like to denounce the invitation of the representatives of the Polisario Front in the framework of the Monitoring Group on the Maghreb of the Committee on International Trade. First, this militia is supported by Algeria to destabilise Morocco, an important partner for the European Union. Secondly, its links with Islamists, the barbaric attacks on the people of the city of Smara in 2023 and the cases of diversion of humanitarian aid from the Tindouf camp should alarm us. Finally, in 2018, our Parliament warned in a resolution of the negative effects on local populations of the non-application of tariff preferences in Western Sahara. Therefore, this invitation harms the reputation of our Parliament and the people of the Moroccan Sahara, as much as it compromises our cooperation with Morocco. That is why, Madam President, under our Rules of Procedure, I ask you to cancel this statement.

Mr President, it is now Kyrgyzstan’s turn to suffer the wrath of European neo-colonialism – with Parliament once again attacking the fundamental principle of the sovereignty of nations. With this debate, the European Union has chosen a victim, prosecuted by the justice of its country for accusations of vote buying. Decidedly, with the socialists, nothing changes. Whether here, with the Qatargate affair, or in Kyrgyzstan, socialists often find themselves, unfortunately, entangled in corruption cases. Frankly, do our discussions correspond to the spirit of mutual respect and cooperation between nations? Do we here in Strasbourg have the right to dictate or even comment on the internal decisions of a democratic state like Kyrgyzstan, when we have no serious evidence on this matter? I firmly believe not. Respect for the sovereignty of States and peoples must take precedence over all other considerations. We cannot claim to defend democracy and human rights by at the same time – and continuously – flouting the principle of non-political interference in the affairs of other nations. The European Union is increasingly becoming what it has always wanted to avoid: an interventionist and neocolonial power.

Madam President, 'Now no woman can go to the fields alone. They are afraid of being raped and abused.” This testimony by a Congolese woman from North Kivu gives a glimpse of the hell that has become the daily life of women in this region. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, rape has become a weapon. Not an isolated strategy, but a real tragedy of war. Who is the architect, Madam Vice-President? It is Paul Kagame, the Rwandan dictator whom the European Commission supports against Kinshasa, who was brilliantly re-elected with 99.13% of the vote – and there is nothing to complain about... And then, if I may, I listened to your speech. You said that sanctions should be imposed on all those who are complicit. I am afraid that, for you, the sanctions should start by taking them here, in Strasbourg and in Brussels. Why? Because, as you well know – or perhaps you will find out – the European Union has signed an agreement that is being presented as exemplary, and where, in reality, Rwanda is buying minerals that it does not have, but that, as everyone knows – as the UN confirmed in its report last June – it is plundering from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, just on the other side of its border. That is to say, in reality, one feels guilty by being a receiver and buying these minerals. So, if you want to take sanctions, start there, or change this agreement, which I think is an agreement that encourages these rapes.

Mr President, in Georgia, as indeed in Romania, the European Union refuses the choice of the peoples. Georgia has become the scene of a creeping insurgency, which breathes the scent of a foreign-led destabilisation operation against the legitimate Georgian power. As evidenced by these demonstrations, at night, in the streets of Tbilisi, where the opposition – which you encourage – throws its supporters against the Georgian state, probably seeking slippage and multiplying provocations, on the model of Maidan. Yet Georgia and its institutions stand firm. They are resisting the violence of those who, having lost the elections, are now attempting, with your support, a coup de force. The victory of Georgian Dream was recognized by the Central Electoral Commission, and President Kavelashvili was elected in accordance with the law. People no longer want to see their sovereignty confiscated, neither in Georgia nor in Romania. The EU wants to masquerade as a guarantor of prosperity and democracy, but in Georgia it is encouraging a coup that risks dragging the country into chaos.

Mr President, who here in Strasbourg or Brussels sees this clearly in the European Global Gateway programme, which has a budget of 300 billion? Not surprisingly, pretty much no one. The laudable and bold intention of 2021 to propose a European response to the new Silk Roads seems to have turned into a big bureaucratic confusing machine. This is particularly true for potential beneficiaries of the programme, for whom the clarity and readability of the allocation of funds is a real conundrum. Take, for example, a country like Chad: ambitious transport infrastructure projects are expected to materialise there through Global Gateway – and that is very good. But when it comes, for example, to the financing of the solar farms project in Chad’s three major cities of N’Djamena, Moundou and Abéché, where the rate of access to electricity is 6.4% – one of the lowest in the world – nothing is clear. However, these projects are crucial and priority, and N’Djaména should be able to count on more readable development policies, as was the case with the Cotonou and Samoa agreements. In Africa, and especially in Chad, Europe must have a clear plan that responds first and foremost to people’s needs. That must be our only obsession.

Mr President, in Pristina, the protege of the European Union has been organising the constant harassment of the Serbian community in Kosovo since 2021. 25 years after the Gracko massacre, Albin Kurti continues ethnic cleansing and systematic violence against Serbs. Everything passes there: physical violence, administrative constraints and institutional discrimination. This coordinated plan is ruining the lives of 120,000 Serbs still in Kosovo. In fact, 15 per cent of them had already left Kosovo in the previous year. Logical, since public services for Serbs are being abolished. The Serbian dinar is banned, forcing retirees to travel hundreds of kilometres to receive their pension. Entire families are being expropriated from their ancestral lands and the police, composed exclusively of Albanians, are abusing Serbian civilians. In Brussels, the European Union does not care about this situation. Worse, she can handle it. In line with its double standard policy, the Commission has just announced EUR 882 million for Kosovo in October, which Pristina will undoubtedly use to oppress Kosovo Serbs. When will we finally react?

Mr President, ten days after the victory of Georgian Dream, the German embassy in Tbilisi was calling, in a message full of ambiguity and hypocrisy, for a peaceful revolution. Worse still, the chairman of the Swedish Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee is bluntly giving instructions to Georgians: go out into the street, peaceful demonstrations must develop, remember the Maidan revolution. Since 28 October, not a day has passed without a European leader interfering in Georgian affairs. These multiple destabilizations must stop, unless the European Union definitively wants to become like the USSR. Especially since the organization of demonstrations, encouraged and financed by Soros and his friends in the Georgian capital in no way reflects the political state of the whole country. On 28 October, Georgians gave a very clear majority to the Georgian Dream Party. They are neither the vassals of Moscow nor the obligors of Brussels. They are simply free, European and want to remain Georgians, let us respect their choice.

Mr President, Lebanon is in danger of death. Neither the European Union nor France is up to the human tragedy at stake. Faced with this ruthless war, the European Union is stubborn in its certainties and refuses to come to the aid of Damascus, which is at the forefront of managing the reception of refugees in this crisis. Every day, thousands of people cross the border to seek refuge and protection in Syria. Today, almost 240 000 people have already made the choice to cross into Syria, considering that Syria is a safe territory. But Europe and France remain still, while Italy calls for a renewed dialogue with the Syrian Arab Republic. The situation in Lebanon is only getting worse, and with it, if nothing is done, looms the threat of a new wave of refugees migrating to Europe. The Syrians, behind Bashar al-Assad, valiantly resisted the Islamists whom some of you in this Chamber had supported. There is an urgent need to reconnect with Syria. It is in the interest of the refugees it hosts, but also of the countries of the region, and it is also in the interest of Europe.

Mr President, 'do what I say, not what I do' is the motto that sums up the attitude of the European Parliament in the general elections in Georgia on 26 October. Indeed, on the eve of a major election, the vote on such a resolution truly sounds like an alibi disguised as a banner, a tool offered to agitators and foreign-funded NGOs, which aims to destabilize the current majority in Georgia. In 2020, George Soros's Open Society Foundation acknowledged that it had poured 85 million euros into Georgia since 1994, including nearly 5 million euros in 2019. Since then, no figures seem to have been made public, but this foreign interference, obviously, does not bother anyone here. Once again, it is being demonstrated that the European Union is applying double standards, because obviously, by engaging in this dangerous game, we are serving as a voice for external interests, including those of the Open Society, which are seeking to sow chaos in the Caucasus. Everyone can guess that in case of victory of the Georgian Dream, some hope to reverse the result by disorder and chaos, or even by a new Maidan. Everyone will also fully understand that the purpose of this resolution is to influence the exercise of Georgian democracy through obvious external interference. This is dangerous, because it also gives the European Union an image of a neo-colonial moralizer. Our willingness to denounce interference is matched only by our silence when it comes from our own camp, or when it serves our interests. The Georgians do not want to take their orders from Moscow, nor do they want to take their orders from Brussels. Finally, I fear that this pressure will end in a vulgar blackmail of funding. On October 26, let the Georgians choose their own future. No need to give them lessons. This free and courageous people will be able to choose their destiny alone.

Madam President, like many French people, my thoughts are with our Lebanese friends, once again caught up in the suffering of the war. This war is now regionalized, as Israel has engaged its army on seven different fronts and is fighting Hezbollah. However, let's be clear, Lebanon is not just Hezbollah. This political and military party undeniably exerts its influence, but today it is the Lebanese people who pay the high price. Everywhere, civilians are trapped in this conflict, victims of an unlimited confrontation between great powers fighting to divide the world. In Beirut and Lebanon, Israeli shelling has already killed more than 2,000 people, including two Frenchmen, according to official figures, and displaced more than a million people, nearly a fifth of Lebanon's population. So, if Europe and especially France want to reconnect with their diplomatic tradition, we must resume the initiative and engage in respectful mediations, in order to reverse the logic of war. Yes, Israel must be able to live in peace within borders recognized by all. Yes, the same is true for Lebanon. Yes, the Palestinians, rid of their Islamist demons, must also, in the long run, be able to benefit from a state.

Mr President, in Afghanistan, women have ceased to exist. This is the last horrific find of the Taliban who have just completed their entry into the cabinet of nothingness and hell. In 114 pages and 35 articles of a surrealist law, they have just imposed this summer a new human madness, that of the enslavement of Afghan women. I say it with gravity, the gravity of impotence, the one that the West has long shaped on its own initiative in the region. Because yes, for 40 years we Europeans have been offering Afghan women to the vindictiveness of these furious madmen by pursuing an interventionist and geopolitical agenda in this country that is still at the helm of the Anglo-Saxons. Who remembers the Afghan program initiated by the CIA in the 1980s? Six to 12 billion dollars poured directly into the pockets of Islamist movements via Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, the very ones that will give birth to the Taliban. Who remembers the disbandment of NATO in Kabul after 20 years of sterile occupation? Who will remember the sums we are pouring into Afghanistan today with the United States, one of the Taliban's main donors: 21 billion dollars distributed since 2021 and kindly transported by the United Nations, as recalled a few days ago by the newspaper The World. Certainly, Afghan women will remember this, since they, despite the silence that this new law imposes on them, will eventually understand that we are all partly responsible for the sad fate that awaits them. So, to the chaste ears of many of my colleagues who are advancing on this subject with limited vision, I want to offer some advice. Let us immediately stop subsidizing the Taliban through European humanitarian aid, almost 126 million euros this year, which can be directly credited to the enslavement of these women. Finally, let us stop financing at home, in the European Parliament, Islamist pharmacies such as Femyso, an NGO close to the Muslim Brotherhood and whose program converges with that of our worst enemies.

Madam President, you have decidedly only the enlargement of the European Union in your mouth. After trying to bring Turkey into the forceps, you are now proposing Ukraine, the Balkans and soon the non-European Caucasus. The founding countries of the European Union continue to pay the high price of successive enlargements, such as France, of course, which sees the European Union turning away from the Mediterranean basin and leaning ever further to the East. Emmanuel Macron brings together the last quarteron of his admirers at the Sorbonne today. He embarked on his favourite exercise: pretentious monologues who do not hide the catastrophic balance sheet of the duo he forms with von der Leyen. Five years ago you promised prosperity. What is the assessment five years later? European growth is one of the lowest in the world. Inflation has broken our families. The European demographic winter continues. The migratory flood is multiplied tenfold by your migration pact and the choice you made not to use Frontex as it would be possible to do. The French suffer from your decisions, but you have no intention of hearing them or influencing your policy. Most of all, you're hiding the truth. For once, I listened carefully – and I almost wanted to applaud you, Mr Verhofstadt, because you are right. Under the current Treaties, we cannot operate at 20, 30 or 35, and that is what I criticise the Commission and Emmanuel Macron for: They hide the truth from the French, because everyone knows that in this Chamber, as in the Commission, there is a hidden programme. The hidden agenda is indeed the abandonment of the veto. On Wednesday 24 April, 50 leading French intellectuals spoke in The Figaro against the abolition of the Member States’ right of veto in the European Council. Removing this right of veto means that France no longer controls its nuclear weapon or its seat on the Security Council. This would be a real betrayal of French sovereignty. Like these 50 intellectuals, we will not let this coup against democracy and against the French pass. If the veto is abandoned, we will call for a referendum in France.