Speeches

Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, April 4, a fifteen-year-old was murdered, beaten and left on the ground in front of his college gate. Two days later, 14-year-old Samara was lynched to the point of falling into a coma because she refused to wear the Islamic veil. It was last week. On Monday, a thirteen-year-old girl was assaulted by four boys for failing to respect Ramadan. These crimes did not arrive in Syria or Afghanistan, but in France, at a school in the Republic, the same Republic where teachers are threatened with death on a daily basis in the name of Allah. The same school where Samuel Paty and Dominique Bernard died. This year, 4 512 incidents of violence against secularism were recorded by the National Education Office. How many more victims will it take for you to open your eyes? How many more Lola, Mégane, Thomas, Victorine will it take for you to realise that our societies are cracking under violence, the result of uncontrolled immigration? You're responsible. You organise immigration through projects like the European Migration Pact and you have to answer for your decisions.

Madam President, Gandhi said: “One can judge the greatness of a nation and its moral progress by how it treats its animals.” There is still much to be done on animal welfare to live up to this quote. The European legislation governing slaughter lays down as a principle the stunning of animals before they are killed in order to prevent them from suffering. This is a good thing, but the problem is that this text provides for an exception for ritual slaughter, an exception that has become the rule, since, according to the latest report of the General Council for Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas, 51% of the slaughter carried out in France is ritual slaughter. In some territories in France, you do not even have a choice, since you no longer have a conventional slaughterhouse for reasons of simplifying tasks or reducing costs. Lack of traceability also makes it impossible to know whether meat from animal welfare is consumed or not. Ritual slaughter is an organised slaughter of absolute cruelty from another time, which has no place in our Western societies and civilisation. So it is high time to banish these barbaric and bloodthirsty, medieval exceptions to worship, which must not be above our values and above animal suffering.

Madam President, on 27 August, a massive rockfall of 10 000 cubic metres took place in the La Praz sector, cutting off all road and rail traffic in Haute-Maurienne and the main border crossing point between Italy and France. Today, around 50 French and Italian companies using the Alpine railway motorway are at a standstill and are suffering colossal losses, with no long-term vision. The only solutions are deferral of charges and short-time work. The region and other local authorities or parliamentarians offer absolutely nothing effective to these companies, which are losing everything. While the work of Lyon-Turin will cost the European Union several billion euros, it is imperative to act immediately to help these professionals, who will no longer exist when the line finally comes into being. I am therefore asking the Commission for emergency aid. My request is supported by several elected representatives from the territory, including mayors, regional councillors and municipal councillors, of all political sensitivities – dozens of elected representatives, whose list is constantly growing. The future of these companies and an entire region is at stake. So get off your ivory tower, as it is high time to act and take concrete action.

Mr President, on a topical debate on European industrial competitiveness, how can we fail to mention the most emblematic case of the incompetence of our leaders in this area? I am referring, of course, to Atos, a former French industrial flagship, which was one of the ten most important companies in the essential digital services sector, alongside IBM or HP. But look where we are now! After decades of disastrous choices, this gem is on the verge of bankruptcy. Yes, you have heard: Atos has lost more than 4 500 % of its market value and is strangled by a debt of more than EUR 5 billion. And who is responsible for this industrial debacle? Thierry Breton, of course! Thierry Breton, the current European Commissioner for the Internal Market, was CEO of Atos between 2008 and his appointment to the European Commission in 2019. And what happened in those years? Nothing positive, since it has completely missed the strategic shift in its sector of activity, in particular that of cloud computing, leaving Atos with a completely obsolete productive apparatus. So, before we dream of an industrially prosperous Europe, let us try not to entrust decision-making positions to officials who have destroyed our industry! We cannot allow incompetents to continue to ruin our economy and our future. It is high time we took strong action to protect our businesses and jobs.

Mr President, today, 8 February 2024, we need to discuss the working conditions of teachers in the European Union. But this debate should have taken place a long time ago. It should have taken place before 16 October 2020, the day of the death of Samuel Paty, a history-geography teacher at the college, who was beheaded by an Islamist terrorist for showing two cartoons of Mohammed from the Charlie Hebdo newspaper during a course on freedom of expression. On that day, and for the first time, terrorism took to school as a sanctuary of knowledge. But, alas, this was not the last time. On 13 October 2023, Dominique Bernard, a French teacher, was in turn stabbed by an Islamist terrorist. They died for doing their job. They died for wanting to pass on their knowledge to the children. Today, teachers must work with the Islamist threat above their heads. They have to talk to some children whose parents refuse science, refuse freedom of expression, refuse the values of France. Today, many teachers self-censor themselves for fear of reprisals, for fear of dying to do their jobs. It is high time to open our eyes to the EU's migration policies, which are directly responsible for this situation. They advocate the uncontrolled opening of borders and the destruction of national identities. It is high time to put an end to your policies... (The President withdrew the floor to the speaker)

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, for years the Brussels technocrats, hand in hand with the radical environmentalists, have been imposing on us an absurd energy policy that favours wind and solar energy, and this, of course, under the blissful acclaim of the elected representatives of the left. The result was written in advance: total dependence on foreign powers, lagging energy production, unable to meet growing demand and compromised supply stability. And now, after being primarily responsible for an energy crisis, you're rushing to explore geothermal technologies. If this is good news, this sudden change of direction is still revealing. The truth behind this draft policy is that there is no course or method. Your only goal seems to be to make communication shots. And even if, by accident, you happen to make a sensible decision, as today with this proposal on geothermal energy, it is once again the citizens who, in the end, will have to pay the bill for your multiple catastrophic decisions.

Mr President, on 27 October, a massive rockfall of ten thousand cubic metres took place in the La Praz sector, cutting off all road and rail traffic in Haute Maurienne, as well as the main border crossing point between Italy and France. Since then, many companies using the Alpine railway motorway have been at a standstill and are suffering a loss of up to €100,000 per month. While work is expected to be completed by the end of the year, a large proportion of employees are already unemployed and companies do not yet have any long-term vision. Banks do not follow and no emergency aid is released for these companies. Absolutely nothing is proposed while they are losing everything. Some will go into liquidation in a few weeks if nothing is done. While the works of Lyon-Turin will cost the European Union several billion euros, it is imperative to act without delay to help the professionals of the railway that will no longer exist when the line finally sees the light of day.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are here to vote again on a proposal for a regulation on critical raw materials, after negotiations with other institutions. Finally, you acknowledge your mistakes. For years, we have been denouncing your ultra-liberal policy, which has created unfair competition and made us dependent on imports of essential raw materials for our industries. But now you finally seem to wake up. Better late than never, even if it took way too long. Finally, you acknowledge that countries must be able to financially support future industrial projects, like our international competitors. You are even trying to reduce our dependency by setting partial autonomy targets and limiting imports from third countries. We are pleased to see that you finally recognise that we must not tolerate the import of goods produced in an anti-ecological and human rights-contradictory manner. We will vote in favour of this report because it serves the interests of Europe and demonstrates once again the failure of the European Union. Better late than never, but how much time have we lost because of your inaction?

Madam President, in May I asked the Commission a written question to explain the funding it has provided to Islamist organisations. In response, the Commission assured me that there is currently no EU-funded project for these organisations. However, one month before this reply, Islamic Relief was appointed coordinator of a project under the Erasmus+ programme. Worse still, according to a parliamentary report, Islamic Relief has received more than €40 million in EU funding. I would remind you that this Islamist organisation has transferred millions of dollars to Hamas and, according to the German government, has strong ties with the Muslim Brotherhood. Colleagues, not only does the Commission directly fund Islamism with citizens’ money, but it also lies to elected MEPs, the only representatives of the people here. The European Commission is therefore a direct accomplice to Islamism and bears some responsibility for the terrorist attacks that cause pain to the citizens of our continent, when they do not break their lives. Rest assured that, together with the French Members of the Identity and Democracy Group, we will not let go of these serious mistakes and deceptions, which are a disgrace to democracy.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it was therefore not until the global economy was completely paralyzed by the COVID-19 pandemic and our soil was the scene of a major crisis that you began to understand the vital importance of our industries. For decades, you have put forward the dogma of the market and the sacred principle of free and undistorted competition in the industrial field. For decades, you have wanted us to believe that producing our industrial goods on our soil was a mistake and that we should favour relocation to countries where workers are exploited and deprived of any social protection. For too long, you have mocked all those who dared to consider the strategic intervention of the state and you have concluded free trade treaties indiscriminately and without worrying about the consequences for our economy and our workforce. The text we will vote on this week, although imperfect, is a step in the right direction to reindustrialise our nations. But it is sad to see that once again you have shown your inability to anticipate crises and have a solid strategic vision. Europe must rebuild itself industrially and encourage innovation in order to regain the greatness of our civilisation.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, standards, always standards! The European Union only has that word in its mouth. Set ever more standards to rot the lives of our fellow citizens. You want to pass a new standard on car pollution, the famous Euro 7 standard. But it is important that everyone understands the vice behind this text. The European Union recently imposed the switch to all-electric, making us believe that it was a miracle solution to save the planet. Once again, it is the citizens who will have to pay the bill. What do you offer people living outside the big cities, who do not have public transport and have no choice but to take their car to work? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Worse, you despise them, since you make senseless decisions that will profoundly affect their lives. Once again, these decisions are taken by Brussels technocrats hiding in their ivory towers who do not know the realities of our fellow citizens. Behind your so-called environmental protection objectives lies a desire to end our freedoms, starting with freedom of movement. But know that in democracy, it is the people who decide and you will soon pay the political price for this misunderstanding of the people. And vividly on June 9th.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as the report states, almost 60% of farmers in the European Union are over the age of 55, and only 20% are under the age of 40. The observation is simple: Yes, it is true that agricultural occupations no longer attract younger generations. Once again, there is what your pretty texts say and there is what they do not say. In 1970, there were 1.6 million farms in France, compared with 416 000 today, a decrease of 74% in the space of 50 years. Another number that should make you think: In France, there is a farmer who commits suicide every day. Your report will not change anything, especially if it is unable to pinpoint the real problems. For decades, you have been destroying our farmers by imposing unfair competition, within Europe and through the CAP, with the whole world, through free trade agreements, with countries where working conditions and standards are much lower than in Europe. Nothing about the problem of the wolf or compensation following the attacks, whereas this is the first subject that constantly comes up in the mouths of our farmers. Nothing about the administrative and standards that burden and stifle our farmers. Instead, you worry about having as many women farmers as men. It is a question of whether you are simply trying to destroy all our farmers, to destroy the identity of our territories – or you are completely disconnected from reality. So do a little immersion on a farm: get up at dawn and spend days, without breaks, without annual leave, worrying, every night, about the weather or attacks. Because a farmer today also has to be an accountant, a trader, a deliverer, a negotiator... to earn little more than a SMIC. So start by listening to the distress of our farmers, and there you will find real solutions to offer.

Madam President, last Thursday, the Rassemblement National benefited from a parliamentary niche in the Assembly allowing it to table its own bills. The first was to support women suffering from endometriosis, a reminder of the motion for a resolution that I myself tabled here a few months ago, which proposed to take into account the suffering of millions of women affected by this disease in order to provide concrete answers. Whether in the European Parliament or in the National Assembly, all elected macronists therefore reject proposals that are in the public interest to help millions of women. The truth is that you don't care about women's health, and endometriosis is just a piece of communication for you. As proof, Emmanuel Macron promises to act according to the electoral calendar: 2017, 2019, 2022, just before each campaign. And today, women are still waiting for results. These political choices are a disgrace and contempt for the millions of Europeans who suffer and whose daily lives are deeply affected. The Rassemblement National is making women’s health a priority, which I have the honour of fighting in this Parliament and which I will never give up.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for many years the Rassemblement National and the Identity Democracy Group have been denouncing the ultra-liberal policy of the European Union, which has led us to unfair competition and made us dependent on imports of essential materials for our industries. We have repeatedly warned about the dangers of this situation in strategic sectors such as security, aerospace or health. Our goal has always been to defend our national sovereignty and protect our industries. But unfortunately, our warnings have been ignored for too long, until major events such as the global pandemic and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict make you brutally realise the consequences of your past mistakes. Today, you are proposing this Critical Raw Materials Regulation which implicitly acknowledges your mistake. Finally, you agree that states can financially support future industrial projects, like our international competitors. Until yesterday, you advocated economic dependence between countries, but now you are trying to limit it by setting objectives of partial autonomy and limits on imports from third countries. We are pleased to see that you finally recognise that we must not tolerate the import of goods produced in an anti-ecological and human rights-contradictory way, even if these achievements are limited to raw materials. We will therefore vote in favour of this report, not only because it serves the interests of Europe, but also because it constitutes an admission of failure by the European Union.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a wolf attack on Mrs von der Leyen’s pony has finally brought this debate to the agenda. But our herders have suffered these attacks for years without receiving the necessary means to deal with them. The problem that has been a concern for our farmers for a long time seemed so far far far removed from your concerns of technocrats entrenched in your ivory tower. But today, I speak as a Savoyard elected representative, because every week I meet farmers who are exhausted, no longer knowing what to do to get away with it. To the hardship of work, low social recognition, tax choking, etc., we add the problem of the wolf, which is a real scourge for our farmers. Savoie is the third most affected department with 4 to 8 reports of attacks per day. To be compensated in the event of an attack, our farmers are asked to be equipped with means of protection, but today none is really effective. I met a farmer in Maurienne who, despite the use of electrified nets, a shepherd and several patous, was attacked several times. Putting in place means of protection is complex, such as dogs, which must be in sufficient numbers, have a good lineage and be well trained. But unfortunately, specialised training centres are rare or non-existent – none in Savoie for example. In addition, protection dogs are the subject of numerous complaints from neighbours, walkers, and even mayors. It is good to vote against the slaughter of the wolf in the name of animal welfare. But where is this animal welfare when the wolf attacks dozens of sheep and lets them agonize for hours? In the face of increasing predation and the immense distress of our farmers, action is urgently needed. If you remain a spectator of this disastrous situation, we will soon lose all our breeders, who are the wealth and identity of our territories. Every day in France, a farmer commits suicide. Behind this figure are broken lives and families, plunged into inconsolable mourning. And as Jean de La Fontaine said: Beautiful words are worthless without the actions that accompany them.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the right to freedom of religion and belief is one of our most valuable political legacies, bequeathed to us by Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu. These men fought against all absolutisms, be they religious or political. We owe them our freedom. But what remains today? To tell the truth, not much, and we owe it to the left and the globalists who have completely ruined these principles and betrayed what our forefathers have acquired at the cost of their lives. Originally, religious freedom is the guarantee for everyone to believe or not believe in God and to be able to express it without being threatened. This means allowing people to be free from their beliefs. But today, religious freedom represents the exact opposite of these principles. Under the guise of an injunction to benevolence and to live together, religious freedom has become the absolute freedom to profess any dogma up to the most dangerous. In the name of religious freedom. It has become insulting to criticise Islamism that subjugates men and women. The example of the Islamic veil, which is only an insult to women’s independence, is glaring. I am appalled to see that the left in this Parliament hardly dares to defend Iranian women in their fight, when several of them die to get rid of this prison. Shame on you! This parody of religious freedom has even become the laissez-passer by which the European institutions roll out the red carpet to Islamist associations and the alibi that Islamists use to spread their nauseating ideology across Europe and impose their retrograde dogmas on us. Islamist countries like Qatar have fully understood this and are watering their friends on the left with bills to defend their backward values. Your so-called religious freedom therefore makes you complicit in the extremisms that the Enlightenment had rid us of. The multiculturalist ideology of the European Union takes us centuries back... (The President withdrew the floor to the speaker)

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, obviously your ultra-liberal ideology prevents you from seeing reality in the face. You refuse any state intervention in the economy, making us dangerously dependent on other countries in strategic areas such as semiconductors. Your proposal, which aims to financially support the installation of state-of-the-art factories in our territory, fails to address the worrying situation we are in. You refuse to fully guarantee our sovereignty despite your claims. You refuse to finance the development of European software essential to the design of the chips of the future. This decision exposes us to a possible ban on the use of such software by the holders, as the US has recently done with China. In addition, you grant foreign companies that settle with us co-ownership of all patents resulting from research in which they participate to obtain grants without their country of origin offering us reciprocity. This is a real lack of vigilance on your part. Instead of creating a European semiconductor giant, like the successes of Airbus and Ariane, your regulation is only half a victory. This is a missed opportunity that we will have to accept while waiting for a Europe of nations that will not be afraid to claim its greatness.

Madam President, in March I tabled a motion for a resolution to coordinate the fight against endometriosis – in other words, to take the best of care and research from each state. This text was not retained by the ENVI Coordinators as it concerned only one disease among others. You clearly do not seem to understand the severity of this disease, which causes pain worse than that of a birth without an epidural and for which there is no treatment. In addition to being a disabling disease, it has serious psychological consequences. According to a recent study, 84.9% of women with the disease had suicidal thoughts, not to mention those who had already taken action. This is alarming and an observation: Endometriosis kills. It is therefore not a simple disease as some like to suggest. Especially since it concerns 14 million diagnosed Europeans – diagnosed only, since many of them are still wandering and are eagerly waiting for salivary screening to finally put a name to an evil that has been eating away at them for years. As part of my work, I have met dozens of associations that all support my proposal. I was also publicly supported by Camilla Fabricius, Socialist MEP from Denmark, who congratulated me. This is a smart person who first thinks about women’s interests instead of small political calculations. Shame on you for not caring about women's health. Shame on you for leaving millions of women in distress with this disease. Today, 14 million people are diagnosed. But tomorrow they could be your daughters, your mothers, your sisters or your wives. I will therefore continue to fight in Parliament to ensure that their voices are finally heard.

Madam President, the text in question deals with the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure, but in truth it could have been called ‘deployment of infrastructure to make individual car owners pay more and more’. For we must collectively stop lying to ourselves and, above all, to the people. What the European Commission, with the backing of the environmental left, has been boasting about for several years now, is an unnamed blunder. The all-electric mobility you impose without consent will end up completing one of the last dominant European industries internationally, aggravating the climate crisis and creating the conditions for a social massacre for people. The planned roll-out of forced-run electric terminals in this context is only one way to speed up its implementation, in defiance of the principle of technological neutrality, which would require each State to be free of the technologies it uses to decarbonise transport. The European Union is gradually turning into the European Soviet Union where unelected and disconnected technocrats are imposing absurd decisions against the interests of the people. But do not forget that in democracy, it is the people who decide. And in a few months, you may relearn this lesson at your expense.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the issue of the water crisis is a very cross-cutting one, because water is everywhere and is used for all purposes. It is necessary for our food and hygiene, it conditions our agricultural and industrial production, it affects the attractiveness and liveability of our territories, and it is itself greatly affected by our lifestyles and by climate change. We will not overcome a problem of this magnitude with incantations, i.e. with solutions advocated by political ecology as it is currently developed. How can we trust policies that, pretending to respond to climate change, advocate the introduction of all-electric mobility, when we know that the production of a single battery is equivalent to the annual water consumption of 500 people? How can we trust policies that, claiming to restore nature, want to destroy the water reservoirs that are essential for regulating aquifer flows? The time is obviously too short to address here all the absurdities of the pseudo-ecologist policies put in place in Brussels or to develop all viable solutions. The water crisis will be overcome by a radical and logical change, by challenging the free trade model still advocated by the European institutions, by directing our environmental policies towards more localism and by real trust in science, instead of ideology.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, what a pity! This is what inspires me with such a legislative proposal. Because, once it was not customary, the basic finding that prevailed in the data legislation started from a good intuition: Unlock access and use of data to enable the creation of new goods and services. But after this observation, we realise that the Data Act takes up the eternal wanderings of the European Union: lack of strategic vision, blind faith in the market and naivety in its relations with the rest of the world. After completely missing out on the digital revolutions, the data economy and artificial intelligence, the European Commission wants us to believe that the answer to the abysmal delay between Europe, the United States and China is born in digital. In the digital world would be liberalisation. This text, which does not vary from that submitted by the Commission, is nothing more than a pure and simple liberalisation of the data market along the lines of the opening up of State monopolies in the 1990s and 2000. It requires the holder of an essential resource to grant access to it on fair contractual terms, hoping that the market will take care of the rest. This logic is completely wrong. Worse, it is backwards reasoning. The priority question is not so much whether the data is circulating enough or not enough. The key question is why they are not controlled by European giants in a European innovation ecosystem. The Commission is like an overly naive child who is led to believe that Google, Facebook, Apple and others are simply the result of great minds locked in their parents' garages. In doing so, she is unable to understand that it was the strategic vision of state interventionism that helped create the digital champions. It is the development of essential skills combined with massive investment in cutting-edge technologies and the development of the latest generation of networks. But again, the EU is fundamentally incapable of this kind of reasoning. Moreover, this text raises so many other problems that time prevents me from addressing them. Nothing about the effective protection of our companies' data against international competitors. Nothing about cybersecurity, nothing about the abuse of authority of public entities that this text seems to completely ignore. Nothing yet on the cost of accessing certain data. So certainly, the Data Act will actually be able to help create some economic opportunities on the margins. But fundamentally, Europe is and will remain bound to remain digitally submissive to the rest of the world.

Mr President, the Identity and Democracy Group takes note of the decision of the negotiators in the Council to reposition their vote on the legislation putting an end to thermal vehicles by 2035. We take all the more note of this decision as it is finally a common sense decision. Would I dare to say that this is in all respects the position expressed by the Identity and Democracy Group? Since the beginning of the negotiations, our group has taken a clear and consistent position on the subject. Is it imperative to reduce CO2 emissions from transport? Yes, yes. Is the all-electric policy a solution? Certainly not. This is an environmental nonsense, will create a social catastrophe and the destruction of an industry over which Europe is still a world leader. Ladies and gentlemen, let us seize this flash of clarity from the Council and finally adopt legislation that makes sense. Invest in synthetic fuels and hydrogen produced from decarbonised, reliable and abundant sources. In a word, let us regain our sovereignty so that all our fellow citizens do not pay the high price for our decisions.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, before coming up with solutions to a problem, it is first necessary to make the right diagnosis. It is therefore important to recall, in this regard, that the conflict taking place in the east of our continent is having a disastrous impact on the entire Western world, and in particular on the countries of the European Union. In this communication, the European Commission says it wants to limit the negative impact of the conflict on the circulation of mineral fertilisers. At the same time, the Commission does not wish to promote the path of diplomacy between the two parties in order to initiate a peace process, but, on the contrary, it favours the crystallisation of relations and, thus, the stagnation of the conflict. It therefore deplores the effects whose causes it cherishes. Secondly, the Commission says it wants to encourage the diversification of imports in order to reduce dependence on Russia for food and fertilisers. This is to put a bandage on an open wound, and it is absolutely not a solution for the countries of the European Union. Indeed, if we want to guarantee our food sovereignty, do you not think that we need to take another path instead of replacing one dependency with another? On the contrary, should we not ensure that we produce again on our soil, through protectionist policies, in these key sectors? This is the spirit of a Europe that protects, rather than a Europe that exposes. Unfortunately, however, this is not what the current European institutions are advocating.

Madam President, I wanted to take the floor on the industrial competitiveness strategy, on which we will have to vote this week. Let us not be fooled: this strategy only has a name strategy. The last few months have shown us more than ever that the world is changing its times and changing very fast. While China massively subsidizes its domestic industries and blocks some global markets, such as solar technology, the United States is implementing a massive protectionist policy, of which our companies are the first victims. No more happy pseudo-globalization, no more free trade without constraint, no more hopes of reciprocity: it is high time to agree that the process of globalisation is receding, and that it is now necessary to change our ways of thinking. Let us not, once again, lag behind the great challenges facing us. Let us put in place real policies to repatriate our industrial capacities. Let us invest massively in the production capacities of the technologies of the future. Let’s develop ambitious industrial projects at European level, where every Member State willing to do so can make its contribution. Ladies and gentlemen, the stakes are enormous. This is obviously true of our ability to be sovereign in economic matters, but, more broadly, it is true of the stability of our societies. So let's live up to it and protect our industries.