Speeches

Madam President, Mr Vice-President, Minister, reading the title of this debate, I believed in a miracle. Finally, I thought to myself that the Commission has understood the harm it has done to our competitiveness. Too much paperwork, as you say today. But the reality is different. You still list ten terrible barriers in our internal market. But the most terrible barrier, well, I want to say, is Brussels. Your answer: bureaucracy with 27 sherpas to reshuffle friends and Theodul committees that will serve no purpose. For Brussels, dropping out is never his fault. And, as if that wasn't enough, you want to further centralize with yet another supervisory authority. For you, Mr Séjourné, Brussels is never responsible for the sinking. Your software is: We need more Europe. Since 2010, the wealth of the United States has jumped by 34%, that of the European Union by just 21% – this is in the Draghi report. Thirteen points apart. And you dare to say that it is because there is not enough Europe? I want to tell you: Tell it to the car industry, which is collapsing. The solution? Simplification of course, but you also have to get out of "I regulate, so I am".

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, you want to debate fundamental rights in Slovakia and you want the Commission to crack down? I am surprised at this angle, since the subjects of the week, it is the Epstein affair, it is the report of the American Congress on the pressures of Brussels exerted on the platforms to help the left caviar against the patriotic parties during the elections. It is also interference, it is the Commission's desire to interfere in electoral processes here in Europe, in our countries and throughout the world. Yes, we did it in Slovakia, Romania and we will do it again in Germany if necessary. Remember when Ursula came to a party meeting of Emmanuel Macron in October 2023, or when she pushed back the Russian oil embargo so as not to push up fuel prices before the presidential election in France. So stop with your rule of law tremolos: Brussels interferes, Brussels interferes. Read the American report. We discover this enormous machination: 90 meetings organised in two years by the Commission with subsidised left-wing NGOs to put pressure on major platforms. They refused me this information. Objective: reduce the visibility of populist or anti-elite content, anti-immigrant sentiment and even political satire, via the guidelines of the EU Internet Forum, via the anti-disinformation code smuggled into the DSA last year. In the end, TikTok admits that they censored 45,000 topics on immigration or climate change during the European elections, and that they censored publications calling to stop the sexualization of children during the elections in Slovakia in 2023. Finally, what are Europe's values? I'm asking you.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, non-consensual sexual images generated by artificial intelligence, as well as sexual exploitation on social networks, are serious scourges that affect women and minors in particular. Courts must resolutely sanction them and platforms must be fully responsive to illegal content reported to them. I hear calls today to ban artificial imaging tools like Grok, or even shut down Network X, following the bikini imagery case highlighted by a study by AI Forensics. This organization, like others, benefits from public and private funding, which does not invalidate its work, but calls for a serene and proportionate debate. We seem to discover that some users fantasize about deeply problematic uses of these technologies. Let's be clear, the revenge porn and any production or dissemination of sexual images without consent is intolerable and must be severely repressed. But banning entire tools because of their misuse would be a mistake. We did not prohibit drawing or photography because they could be used for illicit productions. There is a risk of hypocrisy and morality with variable geometry. Some online commercialized sexual practices arouse little indignation, while emotion is immediate when it comes to new technologies. The law must remain consistent. So let's find the right balance: platforms must clearly indicate when images are artificial, victims must be protected and the law must be applied rigorously, without hypocrisy or excess. Yes, anyone using any artificial intelligence tool for the purpose of harassment or sexual assault must be liable to prosecution. It is individual responsibility and not blind technological prohibition that must guide our action.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in Strasbourg, a symbol of European democracy, 320 employees at the Dumarey factory have just learned that their work tool will close in 2026. What a cruel irony! Right here, where it claims to protect its citizens, Europe is killing an industrial factory, know-how and hundreds of families. This closure is not an economic inevitability, it is the result of European policy choices: free and distorted competition as dogma, the abandonment of any real industrial policy and blind submission to the strategies of large groups and globalised markets. While Europe imposes standards, meansless transitions and absurd fiscal rules, our factories close, our territories desert, and our workers pay the bill. Strasbourg cannot only be the capital of European discourses, it must be the capital of protecting jobs and industry. If the European Union is unable to defend its industrial sites, secure its strategic sectors and protect its workers, then it is betraying its promise. Europe must choose: markets or people, finance or industry, speeches or deeds.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, on the digital front, Brussels promised us to put the package together, but it is clear that we are witnessing the usual repackaging of semicolons with a text of more than 60 000 words. This omnibus has a broom car taste, so let's go further. As usual, Brussels publishes a text without an impact assessment, but hastens to launch a new tool to denounce the legislation of artificial intelligence. That said, I am pleased to read that the Commission services have also carried out several reality checks. You need these reality checks because this 800 billion euro European market deserves better than these permanent windows and pop-ups. On artificial intelligence, yes, companies need security and legal stability. And what do these companies tell us? Too many rules, too much confusion, too many duplicates, too many statements, in short, constraints that are expensive and that above all prevent innovation and competitiveness. The Commission admits that unnecessary administrative costs cost tech companies €1 billion a year. These confusions, these contradictions, these sticks in the wheels suffocate our companies without protecting our personal data. It is therefore also necessary to take advantage of this omnibus to question Ursula's agreement with the United States on computer data transfers between Europe and the United States, the famous data protection framework. Because data is our oil. On this issue of data sharing, let us give priority to our European companies. It is 2025 and unfortunately the words "European company" are still missing from the Brussels vocabulary. As we know, in Ursula's Europe, the only data protected are criminal convictions. Let's change that.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a few days ago the prosecution service was seized by the repression of fraud: Shein sold sex dolls with the appearance of girls at EUR 200 per unit. A whistleblower had reported the scandal on the French government’s website, with no response. It was necessary that 60 million consumers intervene so that it moves. What is the Digital Services Act for? Instead of hunting down and banning illegal products, he censored the Patriots. We block sovereigntist accounts, track down misguided tweets, but let Shein sell girl sex dolls for pedophiles. What are the priorities of Brussels? Repressing freedom rather than protecting our children? There, hypocrisy reaches its peak. Remember Christophe Castaner, Macron’s former interior minister, who fought hard against the ‘yellow vests’? Well, the same Christophe Castaner, from December 2024 to June 2025, received a salary as a CSR advisor at Shein... Shein prospered thanks to deindustrialization, customs holes, and the complicity of large-scale distribution. The BHV even opened its doors to him by splitting off one of the following: ‘Everything that was reproached to Shein will no longer be valid.’ That the Digital Services Act protects our internal market from illegal and dangerous products! Protect our children and our jobs, in France and in Europe!

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Vice-President of the Commission, this debate on Google's abuses in the advertising market is the result of a strategic failure in Brussels, I must say. So yes, this threat of a fine of 3 billion euros announced by the commission on September 5 is a positive step. And I say it clearly, during the DMA negotiations, we pushed for heavy fines, if they are justified of course, or even for structural measures. But unfortunately, we also know the music of big ads hiding poorly filed legal files that end up in judicial Berezina. Remember the historic €1 billion fine imposed on Intel in 2009. That was the pride of the Commission at the time. Well, in 2024, after fifteen years of proceedings, the European court definitively annulled this fine. Stronger, the one and a half billion fine imposed on Google AdSense in 2019 was also annulled by the General Court of the European Union. So, should we believe in this fine of 3 billion euros? I'm asking you. Next, should we believe that it will change anything about Google's decisions and the advertising ecosystem in Europe? The truth is that Brussels always has a war of delay. It's been 20 years since Brussels pseudo-investigated Google's self-preference practices. But the initial blindness was when Brussels ignored Google's acquisition of YouTube in 2006. Brussels has been hiding behind financial thresholds, ignoring systemic risk to Europe. However, this acquisition allowed to merge two groups of data, the data of intention, via Google Search, with the data of interest and behavior, via YouTube. They got a 360-degree view of the user, creating this advertising monopoly. And today, it looks like the Commission is discovering YouTube. Let us know if we should be happy about Criteo's alliance with Microsoft. Brussels had no qualms about forcing EDF to part ways with GDF. How do you want to create global European giants under these conditions? Look at China, Google gave up 15 years ago as a result of pressure. So when the Chinese sanction a company, it's one of their champions. That said, let's not forget other threats at the individual level, the Commission's initial complaint revealed that Google passes the full identity of users to advertisers. It looks like Brussels would like other advertisers to have access to it as well. We, too, want this identity never to be accessible. We support contextual advertising that respects anonymity.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this annual report marks a significant turning point this year: that of rediscovered dialogue and shared reason. Thanks to the rapporteur's listening, twelve amendments tabled by the Patriotes for Europe Group were adopted. These amendments uphold fundamental values: national sovereignty, freedom of expression and transparency of our institutions. This result proves that balanced and pragmatic legislative work is possible, under one condition: that the EPP finally agrees to work with the sovereignist forces, rather than submit to the anti-democratic cordon imposed by the left and the far left. A cordon that deprives more than 18 million Europeans of any representation. Democracy must be respected. By voting on this text today, we welcome a constructive report, free from ideological dogmas and faithful to the primary vocation of this committee: listen to citizens and defend their rights. That is why, without hesitation, we will vote in favour of this report.

Mr President, Madam Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen, today's debate is about promoting and protecting the European Union's digital sovereignty. How dare the Commission and the "zero macronists" speak here of European sovereignty, when they were the ones who sold out Alstom, broke EDF-GDF, smashed Atos and shut down the Fessenheim power plant? Macron bequeathed our health data to Microsoft. Under Macron, we also lost Technip, Lafarge and even Doliprane. Brussels abandoned Nokia, chose Microsoft for its internal messaging and a US service provider for its recruitments. Brussels chose Amazon and Microsoft this year for its cloud and, to a lesser extent, OVH. Why to a lesser extent? Stop preaching European preference, stop going to Washington to receive the holy water of the Atlantic Council or the anointing of Soros. The truth is that since Brexit and Trump, you are afraid of the people who no longer vote for you. Today you want the full regulatory powers to enforce censorship with the Single Market for Digital Services Act and tomorrow the control tower to monitor our private conversations, while we are still waiting for the text messages exchanged between Bourla and Ursula. Gone are Gerard Miller's hypnosis and the subsidized newspapers. The people have regained their voice thanks to social networks. You are the media, Musk said. And that’s what bothers you? Macron screams in Saarbrücken against digital platforms. A new Covid Frankenstein variant for this winter. But people don't listen to you anymore. You presume the protection of digital sovereignty only to censor and stifle a narrative that doesn't suit you. You killed the auto industry. Who can believe here that you want to save the digital one?

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, in Europe, the bazooka of more than EUR 2 trillion in public procurement spending is scattered to the four winds, since the hatred of the national priority is the DNA of Brussels. Nuclear power plants in the Czech Republic? The Porto Metro? Victory of Koreans and Chinese. How can Brussels ignore whether we win markets with our competitors and how much they win with us? Brussels tells us: "Look at the Commission's "Access to market" website." But it's incomprehensible and it's in English. French taxpayers are funding these tools, but in Brussels, no one imagined translating this site into French. A whole symbol... Today, as Europe collapses and the Americans act, here is finally a report that talks about imposing reciprocity and European preference in strategic sectors, as we had always proposed, for that matter. A first step for public procurement, a first small step for Europe, since it would be open to our allies. But let's go further and demand technology transfers and factories in Europe. Again, the Commission must lead by example by first buying from European suppliers.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner for Transparency, 4.6 billion products worth less than EUR 150 were imported into Europe in 2024. But 4.6 billion is also the number of doses Ursula ordered during COVID-19. Ursula, summoned today, 7 July, thanks to 77 MEPs who want transparency and truth about these giant contracts, about these hidden SMS messages – this motion was expected by our citizens. Ursula, who should be asking for forgiveness rather than treating the signatories of this motion as plotters. So, of course, it is difficult to monitor all this traffic and ensure consumer safety. So we will support this report on e-commerce, for more security, for more control and for European consumers, of course. But, ladies and gentlemen, I have not heard you denounce the deceit of Pfizer, which pocketed another EUR 163 million from the Commission between 2023 and 2024. The Chinese company Shein is targeted, of which act. What you are not saying is that your friend Castaner, a former macronist minister of the interior, works for Shein. You know, the one who dazzled every Saturday the yellow vests, the "guys" that bother. He's gone from worldly to fashionable. Oddly, this information does not appear in the Commission’s Transparency Register. Nobody in Brussels wants to talk about revolving doors or ‘Pfizergate’. This report avoids noticing that the former German Commissioner for Digital and Anti-Fraud, Günther Oettinger of Ursula’s party, is lobbying for Shein on this very subject and on the Digital Services Act. To paraphrase a quote that led to the resignation of the Santer Commission 20 years ago, it becomes difficult to find anyone with even a semblance of a sense of responsibility.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, have you seen a major leap forward in our economy? No, no. Did you search for Ursula von der Leyen's text messages? No, no. So who can believe that it has a strategy for the European economy, what we call the single market? The truth is, she doesn't care like her text messages. The European Commission must stop sacrificing our national economies in the name of disconnected ideologies, such as these ecological standards that lead to factory closures, job losses and dependence on foreign imports. Stop unrealistic regulations, stop unfavourable free trade agreements, and yes to production here in Europe. We must establish a European preference for our companies, which you continue to refuse. Europe must defend its workers and its economic sovereignty, not dogmas, as on the county, cows and diesel cars, imposed by the Greens via NGOs paid for by the Commission. The Commission, the leading supplier of contracts, must set an example by sourcing here from European companies. Amazon, Microsoft, McKinsey, Pfizer: Stop giving billions of euros from Europeans to competing companies.

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the fine of EUR 530 million imposed on TikTok for breach of the GDPR and the cancellation of the Romanian elections in November 2024 for alleged manipulation by TikTok are deeply disturbing. TikTok is accused of amplified candidate Georgescu's campaign through coordinated accounts, but without evidence of foreign interference. Yet these allegations were used as a pretext to cancel an inconvenient vote. After Meta, then X, today, TikTok is your new scapegoat or useful idiot. The GDPR and the Digital Services Act are becoming geopolitical weapons of a dying Union. No one is fooled: This fine is part of a political war. Do you really want to protect the interests of citizens? Start by terminating all contracts with Microsoft. How can we explain to them the conclusion of a data transfer agreement with the United States, entitled "Data Privacy Framework"? Really, stop this hypocrisy! You've just donated $550 million to Amazon Web Services to manage our cloud. In Europe, however, we have nuggets that are questioning each other. With this new Brussels font, you are not giving a good signal, neither to the digital industry, nor to users.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Trump administration wants to cut costs and stop funding Radio Free Europe, a Cold War propaganda tool – and it is right. One hundred and forty million dollars per year: As Trump no longer wants, you want to pay for him – with our money, of course. Why should we finance an old Cold War relic when our national needs require concrete investments? The European Union, with its obsession with control and inflationary budgets, seeks to interfere where it has no place, undermining the sovereignty of nations – as with these so-called information verifiers, who, in reality, only serve to promote the European system, at home and abroad. So today you want to talk about how to preserve access to democratic media. Is it an April fish? Where were you to offend those who wanted to shut down CNews? Where were you when C8 closed, with its journalists fired overnight? Go explain to the subsidised press in France that the opposition must be fairly received! Go explain to the French people that political justice prevents Marine Le Pen from accessing elections! No one has given you a mandate to promote yourself with political NGOs, and those here who want to invest in a radio station should do so with their own money!

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, to talk about strategy and alliances is also to talk about balance sheets. Education in Europe is collapsing. This is the crash of schools in France: The 2022 PISA exams prove this. The results are collapsing, while the countries of Asia are progressing. Singapore peaks at 575 points, while France drags to 474; It's a huge gap. The OECD tells us that children with a migrant background have even more difficulties. This, it was suspected a little; But, even among the most favored children, we are now very far from Asian countries in math. In American schools, the poorest have better math scores than in France. Here are the countries ahead of France in mathematics: Singapore, Macao, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Estonia, Switzerland, Canada, Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Denmark, Poland, United Kingdom, Australia, Austria, Czechia, Slovenia, Finland, Latvia, Sweden, New Zealand, Lithuania and Germany. In reading, we are very far behind the United States. Another number is scary: 13% of children are afraid for their safety by going to school, or more than 1 million children and adolescents who are afraid. I want to tell you to stop with these hollow slogans. Your inclusion is not intended for children with disabilities, autistic or hospitalized; it is for neutral toilets without urinals and LGBT books required at the library; not to say "father" or "mother", but "parent 1" and "parent 2". These are the priorities of the Brussels caste. However, the example to follow is simple. Look at Singapore; This is our program: academic rigour, authority of teachers, priority to essential subjects, end of ideological drifts and support for students in difficulty. Finally, and tragically, we have the result of this deadly ideology, which is pulling schools down. (The speaker refused to answer the blue card questions of Lukas Sieper and Sabrina Repp.)

Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as you celebrate your return on investment in Moldova, the Romanian people are on the streets because you are complicit in a huge anti-democratic scandal. You don't like a candidate? You eliminate him. Those who follow you, you feed them with loans and grants, as is done in mafia countries. For you, everything is bought – with the money of European taxpayers – when it comes to saving the Brussels speech. Moldova got away with it shortly after the elections narrowly won by the candidate from Brussels. To thank them, billions of euros or dollars are sent from all over the world. For example, Arte claims that NGOs in Moldova received US$2.5 billion – the notorious USAID aid. Today, Brussels still wants to send €1.9 billion to Moldova for two years. To do what? To thank who? To eliminate more local candidates? To buy the voices of whom? To pay pseudo-journalists or fake experts, who chase disinformation while producing fake news? Is this not the definition of interference? Who are you kidding? Moldova, Slovakia, Georgia, Romania: You won't be able to buy all the voices. The people are not corruptible.

Madam President, in one day, Donald Trump ridiculed the army of bureaucrats in Brussels. It has done more in one day for Americans than all your stacks of papers for Europeans in 50 years. Finished punitive ecology. Finished the WHO and humanitarian fraud. Americans will no longer be taxed to pay for this circus, to fund Pfizer, Bill Gates and manipulate the media. We are far from the bag of rice: $4.5 million to monitor misinformation in Kazakhstan, $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia, $32,000 for a transgender comic in Peru, $2 million for gender reassignment surgery in Guatemala. Wasn't USAID supposed to do humanitarian work? As for WHO, what has it done for health? What was it used for during the pandemic? Censoring researchers? To recaser Agnès Buzyn and Jérôme Salomon in Geneva? From so-called vaccine immunity we move to judicial immunity. Why is WHO talking about assigned sex and surgical transition about children? In one day, Trump banned child mutilation and reinstated the excluded military for refusing the COVID injection. Meanwhile, in Brussels, the EU is funding the Europhile media with €132 million in the European elections, but wants to ban X and TikTok for foreign influence. The RTBF, which you know well, Commissioner, even controlled Trump's speech. So, who are you kidding?

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thanks to Donald Trump, we learn that the BBC is financed by the Americans, but also by Brussels: £1.3 million in 2023. An invisible figure in the Commission's financial transparency system, which shows 39 million euros paid to the English channel since 2014. Why does Brussels finance media? Can Reactive, a Europhile media outlet, criticise the Commission if it receives EUR 36 million from the Commission? Why fund foreign media? Why fund Internews, which no one has ever heard of, who receives money from Mr. Soros or vaccine lobbyists? In Paris, their office on rue Jeanne d'Arc is deserted. Yet Brussels would have paid them 72 million euros and the Americans, via USAID, nearly half a billion dollars. Its president would earn nearly $400,000 a year, and last year in Davos, she recommended demonetizing news sites by developing ad exclusion lists. The Commission must explain to us and above all must stop these hidden subsidies of media control and potential corruption.