Speeches

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.

Madam President, Commissioner, Mr Szłapka, ladies and gentlemen, coincidental timing: While Ursula is with the globalists in Davos, we are still talking today about the Digital Services Act, which many want to use for political purposes. Elections cancelled in Romania, contested elections in Georgia, election deadlines this year in Germany, Poland, Hungary, Denmark: This is panic in the ‘good camp’. And what a confession - "We did it in Romania, we can do it again if necessary in Germany" - signed Thierry Breton, former European Commissioner and new employee of Bank of America! Strengthening the DSA with the creation of a special ‘Democratic Shield’ committee, with censorship, with the banning of TikTok, X... But when all the subsidised media campaigned for Macron, it did not bother anyone here. The obsession of many leaders in France and Europe with Musk and his supposed hold on our democracies speaks volumes about what we have become. A chilling, motionless country and continent ruled by the fear of losing power. Years you're spoiled children rotten by a press at your command. Unable to accept their failures, some here say they cuddly leave X. And the Tesla, you're going to burn it? In fact, this desire to strengthen the DSA is not to protect European consumers, but to control voters’ ballots. Yet the best answers are innovation, ambition and competition and, don't you displease, the Patriots in power. As the Commissioner says, the objective of the DSA is the protection of fundamental rights. I therefore call on the Commission to reason, not to give in to the injunctions of the bad losers. Yes, freedom of expression, like freedom of thought, is a fundamental right.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, you talk about 'democracy in action', 'house of democracy', 'shield for democracy', but who are you laughing at? How do you look at yourself in an ice cream? In less than a year, you have turned the DSA, this regulation on digital platforms, into a tool for censorship, for violating democracy. Thierry Breton was in the crosshairs X. Now it is Ursula who is attacking the Chinese giant TikTok. You don't like the election results? You are interfering in the democratic process by insinuating that the culprit is TikTok, and you are cancelling elections in Romania. You don't like a candidate? You cancel the opposition candidacy in Moldova the day before. You don't like patriotic parties? You are setting up an undemocratic cordon by flouting your own rules of procedure. In fact, you are afraid of democracy, afraid of losing your compensation, so you attack those who want to give back to the people. Patriotic leaders, you take them to court to kill them politically; This was the case for Salvini in Italy, and for Marine Le Pen in France. Another example, the European Constitutional Treaty rejected by referendum in France and the Netherlands in 2005 ended up being imposed with sanctions. Your vision of democracy is one-way, without opposition parties, without debate. Be honest, you dream of a dictatorship of single thought. But what is this feeling of superiority that drives you? Take responsibility for your hypocrisy, take responsibility for your poor record and accept that the people no longer trust you and want a different future for Europe. Be sure of one thing: What does not kill makes us stronger, and I extend my full support to the Romanian people.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Ms Emily O’Reilly, Commissioner, first of all, I would like to pay tribute to the importance and quality, dear lady, of the work you have done over the past ten years, and especially since 2020, the year of the COVID-19 madness – in this regard, I welcome the 393 investigations you have opened for 2023 alone. Maladministration has become the system. This is how Europe is run, and we seem to think this is normal. Complaints, reports, hearings... but a Commission that just shrugs its shoulders and continues, as if nothing had happened. Many hypocrites here criticise Ms von der Leyen, but kiss her and give her back her immunity for five years. European citizens no longer want these political tricks. Undeclared travel of Ursula to Greece, ‘Qatargate’, ‘Pfizergate’, multiple revolving door cases: scandals follow one another, and they are ignored. As a mediator, you have worked to ensure that the European Commission put an end to its opaque practices, delays and cronyism, to no avail. That's all it takes: you can count on us to hold this new von der Leyen Commission to account. I welcome your repeated calls for the Commission to respond to requests for justification and clarification – which it has often done only late, if at all. You leave office after two terms, and citizens committed to transparency can say thank you. Now, I hope that your successor will continue your valuable work. I also regret that the shadow rapporteur finally respected the anti-democratic cordon imposed by the EPP-S&D-Renew-Verts/ALE axis, which prevents this report from being improved.

(start of non-microphone intervention) ...Immunity for Ursula von der Leyen. We are a week before the criminal trial of hidden text messages for the purchase of COVID vaccines. This interference is inadmissible. Will the clan around Ursula use this vote of approval from the Commission to put pressure on the judicial process? Couldn't we wait a week before validating a clean, competent and consensual person? This vote on the agenda of the European Parliament is a trial of accomplices. Today, some MEPs approved someone who avoided publicly explaining to MEPs about Pfizer's contracts, despite rulings by the Court of Justice of the European Union, the Ombudsman and the European Court of Auditors' report. Someone who refused to stand in front of voters in the European elections in 2019 and 2024, to defend his record; It also wants to implement a programme presented by Mario Draghi, a former minority Prime Minister in Italy – a programme published after the elections that took stock of the Commission’s liabilities. A minority in France, Spain, Belgium, Czechia, Slovenia and Hungary, Ursula has also not really convinced Polish, Greek or Cypriot MPs, which represents a total of nearly 200 million people. For my part, today I am proud to have voted against this Commission.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I would like to thank the President of the Court of Auditors for this excellent report, which is very useful here for all of us. In France, it is the fiscal shower, the country is ruined, but here in Brussels, we continue to enjoy ourselves, and I will give you three examples. Do the French know that our money is being used to build bicycle garages in Eastern Europe? Do the French know that Brussels accepted a €6 million bill from an NGO in Africa that paid up to 62% more for its fuel than the local price? Do the French know that Brussels sent twice as much money to Afghanistan after the Taliban took Kabul as before, while our soldiers were fighting? In the end, they died for nothing... If you take a closer look at some of the figures in this report, it's just scary: 91 billion pledges for technocrats’ pensions, 104 billion euros of high-risk spending, 458 billion in loans, 110 billion more in one year, 712 billion euros of off-budget post-COVID recovery. A phantom plan, without any financial traceability. Even the Commission says that it does not know who the final beneficiaries are. Brussels’ debts took the elevator, and the French took the stairs to repay them. Brussels flares up while the French are no longer able to heat themselves. I thank you for this excellent report, which sheds light on all these excesses.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, here we are on the road to five more years of teutonries. It had been hoped in 2019 that the first von der Leyen term would reflect sound and honest management. But we had the motorists bludgeoning, a budget slippage and Pfizer's tricks. So tonight we are talking about the European monitoring of e-commerce markets, while our local shops close one after the other. The sale of dangerous, illegal, counterfeit or stolen products is still legion on major platforms. This fight, however, was what you promised when all previous legislation on this issue was adopted. Your slogan? “The Digital Services Act will protect your children.” Today, it is no longer a Digital Services Act, but a Digital Surveillance Act that has been put in place, under the leadership of the resigning Thierry Breton. Consumer associations reported last April the Chinese giant Temu, because it did not ensure the identification of sellers. This is Article 30 of the DSA. These same associations have reported cases where the consumer is manipulated by prices that change or do not correspond to the chosen product. This is Article 25 of the Digital Services Act. We had the 1998 directive on price indications, the 2005 directive on prohibited commercial practices, the new rules on the safety of toys and the reform of the Customs Code. But the reality is a jungle of standards that prevent our French or European companies from developing, and third countries, such as China, the world leader in e-commerce, that easily circumvent our rules – according to an OLAF inspector – or, worse, that benefit from exemptions from customs fees for purchases whose value does not exceed EUR 150. A jungle where, in the end, it is Brussels that shoots a bullet in the foot of European e-commerce.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, dear democrats, dear legalists, I would like to make a point of order. Rule 219 provides for respect for gender equality in the composition of committee bureaux. However, this equality is not respected, nor is the result of the ballot box, i.e. democracy. Indeed, Madam President, you have agreed not to respect democracy by granting a derogation from the principle of gender equality for Mr Weber in several committee offices, thereby ignoring more than 20 million of our voters. How can you accept that the CONT committee, which controls the EU budget – and has to lead by example – continues not to respect our rules? You want to export gender equality to Kazakhstan or dedicate a week to it in December, but this principle is already not respected in CONT, at the very heart of our institution. By not having a fourth Vice-President, the composition of the CONT Bureau violates our Rules of Procedure. Madam President, thank you for taking the necessary steps to put an end to this hypocrisy and to respect our motto, 'United in diversity'.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, do you remember one of the biggest fake news stories of recent years, during the COVID-19 crisis, with 'All vaccinated, all protected'? We knew quite quickly that this was not true and it was forbidden to say it, says this weekend a journalist of CNews. "Forbidden to say it," outright. The media has long been under control, owned by billionaires or subsidized by the regimes in place. But that's not enough for you. You produce fake news, you censor everything, as Mark Zuckerberg just pointed out, and you even let go of Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks. And since from Iraq to Afghanistan, wars go on, here's what he said: Almost every war that has started in the last 50 years has been the result of the lies that have been publicized. The media could have stopped them. If they had done their research rather than relaying government propaganda, they could have stopped them. What does that mean? This means that people do not like wars. People do not agree to go to war with their eyes wide open. People must be manipulated to accept wars. So if we had a healthy media world, we would have a more peaceful world. I would rather say that with a healthy media world, we need above all a healthy political world that respects, do not displease you, all political parties, without inventing new anathemas such as "populism".

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today we are debating anti-whaling activist Paul Watson, who was arrested in Greenland on 21 July 2024 and is awaiting extradition to Japan. This extradition request will be examined on 2 October. The arrest is related to events in the Southern Ocean in February 2010. Watson is charged with complicity in assault and intrusion on a ship, two charges that are related to the collision of a Japanese ship, the Shōnan Maru 2. As a matter of law, States have exclusive jurisdiction over vessels flying their flag while on the high seas. This means that Japan can treat the collision of the Shōnan Maru 2 as if it had occurred on Japanese territory. He issued an international arrest warrant for Paul Watson in 2012. I do not know Paul Watson personally, but I note that France, Brigitte Bardot and more than 700,000 people have mobilized for him by signing a petition against his extradition that would be fatal to him. But over the years, Paul Watson has become famous and even the emblem of the defense of whales, dolphins and other marine mammals hunted around the world. We respect the people, culture and state of Japan. I respect Denmark, Greenland and it will be their decision in the end of course, but this case raises questions. The Kangei Maru, Japanese whaler inaugurated in May 2024, is a war machine designed to kill thousands of whales even in the most remote corners of the planet. Japan is acting in violation of the international moratorium on the whale meat trade, which entered into force in 1986 and which Denmark has ratified. He is shedding the blood of whales at a time when a global mobilization is being organized to free their greatest defender. This pursuit to white hair and the death of a man, this extradition reminds me of others: Those of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, truth fighters, freedom fighters, whistleblowers, they have been chased around the world. Japan has been tracking Paul Watson since 2012 with a red notice issued by Interpol. A 2017 European Parliament report denounces the multiple abuses and misuses of the Red Notice system, used by some governments to track down political activists and opponents. The case of Paul Watson is cited as one example of this kind of abuse. Our challenge today is to find a balance between the fight against animal suffering and the persistence of human traditions, without entering into the game of geopolitical tensions that often underlie these fights.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Digital Service Act or rather Digital Surveillance Act. While your friend Mario Draghi, the man who helped Goldman Sachs and Greece by concealing deficits, paints a disastrous picture of the European Union in terms of technology and innovation, France handcuffs the director of Telegram in the middle of the summer and the Commission hunts down Twitter, or X, which offers interviews with Donald Trump. Even the director of Proton Mail talks about economic suicide. Commissioner Breton, prolix of his lounge chair to send missives in the middle of summer to Elon Musk, is a commissioner who has resigned since yesterday in Brussels and will finally no longer be able to explain himself to MEPs. Yes, a dirty summer for freedom of expression and innovation under the pretext, I quote, of protecting European citizens. Protect them from what, after all? Freedom to think, to think differently? The word "disinformation" has never been heard as much as it is today. The more votes the good side loses, the more it screams to fight disinformation. Parliament even urges us to ask you for stricter control of Telegram. We saw it during the COVID period, with this crazy censorship and vaccine propaganda, questioned a few days ago by the director of Meta who was forced to follow the instructions of the governments. You are finally the puppet of a dying system. The Union you want, even with an 800 billion euro plan, will not go far, but that may be the scam.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to make this last statement and I dedicate it to Michèle Rivasi, who has fought hard for ethics and morals. Following the scandal of bags of tickets or free travel of Qatar, dubious contracts with Pfizer, after having paid a director convicted for rape €18,000 for seven years, the Commission announces to establish a body in charge of ethical standards for the European institutions. Alleluia! However, we already have this: it is the European Court of Auditors, it is the European Ombudsman, it is the European Prosecutor and, ultimately, it is the courts. What happened is very clear; a four-year-old can understand it. The Court of Auditors and the Ombudsman have already explained to President Ursula von der Leyen that there is a serious problem in the way she manages or hides her activities. This new body will depend on the Commission, it will obviously not be independent. Self-assessment, confidential and non-binding opinions: Well, we understood the maneuver. In all these directions and directives, we are told about legal persons; We should also talk about immoral people. As it is time for pre-electoral retraining, I want to say here, in reading Article 5, that Mrs von der Leyen does not meet the conditions for retraining as one of the five so-called independent bureaucrats at EUR 12 000 of this new thing, which will also be at the Commission’s orders. Throughout her career, she has not exhibited impeccable professional behaviour.

Madam President, Commissioner, dear rapporteurs, ladies and gentlemen, as a French member of the Rassemblement National, I obviously support this proposal to promote the repair of goods. Yes, the era of disposable everything and planned obsolescence has led us nowhere. It is not our project of civilisation and it is not our model. Recycling and repairing are also local jobs, here in France, here in Europe. I know this is a bad word for some macronists, but those who pay our salary are not your distant friends, they are European workers. They are the ones we must serve. And we did it by way of amendment, but unfortunately, for political reasons, you ignore them. "Brussels doesn't know how to serve, but Brussels can hurt," Molière said. So today, in Brussels or Berlin, you realise very late that you have destroyed entire parts of European industry. We can no longer stand these frequent lessons and feigned sweetnesses of the Macron/von der Leyen majority, all these virtue-seasoning preachers. The right to repair must strike the right balance between the purchasing power of consumers and an acceptable cost for industries. However, this Brussels Commission has broken our industry with absurd decisions that have caused gas and electricity prices to skyrocket and our jobs to flee. Are our diesel cars repairable or disposable? Is the Fessenheim power plant repairable or disposable? Is Nord Stream repairable or disposable? You broke our automotive industry, you broke our nuclear momentum and shut down the Fessenheim power plant while it was working. Germany dismantles its wind turbines that do not work to take back coal. You are wasting the energy of Europeans and driving our businesses away. What services have you provided to Europe and France? We're still lagging behind. France has now fallen to the level of Greece in terms of the share of industry in GDP. If we repair trains in Bulgaria, who will repair the SNCF? Where is the take-off of French, if not European, digital technology? After decades of industrial destruction, it is also time, yes, to repair Europe. See you on June 10th.

Mr President, allegations of corruption and embezzlement of EU funds in Spain during the pandemic: Thank you for adding this item to the agenda. But let’s go further than Spain and the masks. Some individuals in ministerial cabinets are suspected of corruption. We are told about socialists, we are told about EUR 53 million of COVID-19 masks allocated under the urgency procedure to a company that knew nothing about the sector. We know the music. Today, you all agree to talk about this €53 million for masks, but not contracts for €71 billion COVID-19 vaccines, for 4.6 billion doses to be discarded. Nobody here wants to talk about it, neither the ‘Qatargate’ left, nor the caviar right, nor the green ayatollahs, and especially not Ms von der Leyen. Suspicions of corruption, conflicts of interest affect Spain, but what about Brussels? I asked the Commission where the doses were; it has just replied that it was not in a position to comment on the number of COVID-19 vaccines delivered and administered in the European Union in 2023. However, on January 16, it ordered 146 million doses. Scandals like this, unfortunately, you're going to get shoveled.

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today we are not talking about green algae, but about green claims. These unsubstantiated, imprecise and ambiguous claims are indeed liable to mislead consumers. All of you here are familiar with these greenwashing allegations. Moreover, they apply perfectly to this biodegradable Commission in Brussels: President von der Leyen, who calls herself ‘zero carbon’, but who travels by private jet 23 times in 2023 or by armoured car with bodyguards and driver to walk a few metres between Brussels offices; a Chair who refuses to comment on the allegations attributed to her for lack of transparency or conflict of interest in the staggering contracts for the purchase of COVID-19 vaccines; an administration whose founding act was an integration trip to Ethiopia with 27 Commissioners and a plane packed with hundreds of staff; to an environmentally friendly President who is still travelling to Frankfurt on 28 June 2021, in the midst of COVID-19, to present a Banker of the Year Award. The banker's sustainability values: Here they are, the true European values. This Waste Commission, with billions of doses thrown away, will have dared everything: buy electric cars for €50,000 – let the useless walk! Let the beggars take the bus! No more showering, no more bathing, and lowering the temperature! The carbon that must finally disappear is us. This administration, these so-called friends of nature, sign with New Zealand to import cargoes of butter and cheese, and it tells us about respect for the environment. Twenty thousand kilometers, while butter and cheese, we have here at home. False honey, counterfeiters, the ghosts of ecology are Brussels. Look, if we switched to the hammer-pilon, as Saint-Exupéry said, the miles of paper that your administration has produced over the past five years, Europe would be better off. Europe is dying of your miles of standards and paper. You finally reject Europe, the real Europe, the Europe of business and the real problems.

This is a big topic! Surveillance is important. And indeed, today we have legislation at national level that already regulates this surveillance aspect. The problem is the drift associated with the use of these new tools. Biometrics may be useful for some services, especially at airports, to facilitate passage, but it needs to be regulated. We also have to see which company uses this type of data because we know it very well, it is data that is important and some companies use it. This was seen in the Facebook case: that company resold the data obtained to other organisations. So yes, supervision, it needs to be supervised and we will continue to do so. But we need to know what use to make of it, which is why we need to regulate it; it is necessary to be there as a safeguard against those who use these useful means for society. This has been seen in the case of the COVID crisis: there have been abuses, with discrimination against certain populations. In my opinion, this is the risk for the future, if we put this in the hands of, say, authoritarian services and authorities.