Speeches

Madam President, for the past week, the Middle East has been inflamed by the deluge of bombs. The risk of regional deflagration is total and peace is flickering to our doorstep, since Cyprus has been targeted. Faced with this, what is our answer? Blindness. Look at the texts we are looking at today: the flagship projects of European defence, the single market – there are 36 references to NATO, 36 reminders of our allegiance to an organisation that does not defend our interests, but dictates our submission. How can we carry the voice of de-escalation when we remain bound in the face of an American power that fuels conflict and tramples on international law? The European Union can no longer simply be a spectator. It must build a real front of rejection of imperialism and war. This presupposes a truly independent defense industry freed from Washington's tutelage. But talking about the defence industry also implies a clear political choice. Public authorities must regain control in the face of market logics and private interests. For as long as war remains a lucrative market, peace will only be an illusion. Let's live up to history. Let us stop serving the private interests and alliances of the past and have the courage of non-alignment.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my speech will speak. But what a disappointment! However, the report pursued a legitimate objective: ensuring the sovereignty and security of Europeans through drones. To do this, it had to define a clear and ambitious roadmap to design and use these technologies in a fully autonomous way, and I repeat, in a fully autonomous way. However, the observation is unequivocal, every four paragraphs, a reference to NATO, 78 times in total. Is this your view of European strategic autonomy? An autonomy that makes us even more dependent on an organization under the control of the United States, and this only a few weeks after the threats of annexation made by Donald Trump against a territory of a member state of the European Union. Through this text, you persist in wanting to deliver to the United States the secrets related to our drones, from their design to their deployment. As long as these permanent references to NATO persist in the field of defence, our regulations will not protect us. They align us and they weaken us. And when it is difficult to get out of the military field in this text to address the civilian uses of drones, the account is not there. We had proposed amendments, because these essential technologies could be used for very concrete uses, firefighting, the search for victims during natural disasters. But no, your priority has remained Frontex, i.e. the use of drones to track down exiles. The far right dreamed of it, you did it. These are your choices and your deadly ideology. We, for our part, defend another vision, that of a European security emancipated from the shackles of NATO, at the service of our sovereignty and a technology put at the service of the common good and the security of all.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, imprisoning academics for their ideas is an act of exceptional gravity, in the face of which Europe cannot remain silent. Bahruz Samadov and Igbal Abilov, two researchers and academics committed to peace, have been sentenced by the authoritarian regime in Aliev to long prison terms, following arbitrary procedures that are deeply contrary to the rule of law. Their crime? They had the courage to carry a peaceful message and a critical word expressed as part of their academic work. By attacking these two academics, academic freedom is linked. Our duty is to support freedom of expression, academic freedom and the rule of law, even if it would harm the economic interests of those who still buy gas in Baku. In this sense, I strongly denounce the hypocrisy of the European Union: it was with Aliev that Ursula von der Leyen went to sign a gas agreement with great fanfare in defiance of human rights. And all this for what? To buy gas that is suspected to actually come from Russia. The Commission and the Council can no longer remain silent in the face of the Aliev regime. Institutions must make use of available levers to free researchers and protect human rights.

Mr President, 'he died for nothing'. These words, spoken by Amine Kessaci, present in this Chamber, when speaking of her little brother, Mehdi, resonate in each of us as a cry of pain and truth. To say that Mehdi died for nothing is to recall the profound injustice of this tragedy that affected an innocent man, a young man described as good, upright, sincere, whose life was taken from his family and loved ones by drug traffickers. It is also a reminder that our society cannot tolerate the slaughter of innocent people and that, in our Republic, the law of organised crime can never supplant the law of justice. Mehdi’s death forces us to face the reality of narcobanditism, which destroys lives and also forces us to take action. To combat this scourge, a change of doctrine is obviously necessary. Priority must be given to prevention, education, risk reduction and a genuine public health policy to reduce consumption and thus reduce trafficking. What we need in our neighbourhoods, marked by the violence of drug trafficking, is to find local public services, be it community policing, dignified public educational services and cultural and sports resources. With regard to the dismantling of criminal networks, it is at the head that we must strike, going up the channels to find the sponsors throughout Europe. But this requires a drastic increase in the resources allocated to the judicial police and the judiciary to carry out investigations and to dismantle networks in depth. Actions exist, they must now be put in place. I will conclude by saying to Amine that we have heard his call to stand up, to mobilize, and that, through this tribute to his brother Mehdi and to all the innocent victims of organized crime, we make a commitment to him: never look away, never shut up and never accept the unacceptable.

Mr President, stopping Russian gas imports is an absolutely necessary decision to stop financing Putin's war machine. It is also true for our climate commitments and sovereignty. But beware, this ban must be accompanied by means to develop renewable alternatives to gas, because, without an alternative, we depend on another predatory power, I am thinking of the United States. As such, it is unbearable to see the Commission sign agreements with Trump for the purchase of 700 billion very expensive US hydrocarbons, the environmental cost of which is even more disastrous. On the other hand, if we really want to do without Russian gas, let us stop the hypocrisy of buying Azerbaijani gas. You all know here, several sources make it clear, that some Russian gas is transiting to Azerbaijan, a state that has committed ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh and continues to destabilize its Armenian neighbor despite peace talks. So if human rights and people's sovereignty lead us to stop importing Russian gas, and rightly so, let us be consistent and finally put an end to the gas deal with Azerbaijan.

Mr President, the automotive sector is going through an unprecedented crisis. No one can deny it. But today's response from the far right is both simplistic and dangerous. In recent months, I have visited several factories in France and Italy, to exchange with and support workers in the sector. The first thing they told me about, before electrification, was the manufacturers’ decision not to invest in time in modernising their production tools, despite record profits and dividends. I am well aware that the extreme right does not like to take the big bosses to task, and yet they have preferred to increase their margins by relocating rather than showing economic patriotism. Yes, switching to electric power is a challenge for the industry. But the solution is not to tackle our absolutely essential objectives of decarbonising the transport sector, which is responsible for 20% of greenhouse gas emissions. Solutions? We have been proposing for months in this Chamber: apply effective trade defence measures and European preference criteria; introducing European-wide social leasing to enable everyone to buy electric vehicles, which are now too expensive for households; and develop a public pole of electric terminals to ensure a fair distribution on the territory. For the predictability of the sector, for the preservation of jobs and the environment, let us keep the course of the transition to electricity.

Mr President, the ultimatum of Donald Trump was due to expire today. We have won a slight reprieve, but the terms of the blackmail have not changed. If we do not give in to his demands on digital, taxation and trade, he will stifle our economy. He threatens us because he knows he can, since there has been a certain servility of our European leaders for decades towards the so-called American ally, a servility that leads us to an extreme dependence on their market and their products. This dependency kills in the bud any desire to bring out national or regional actors, essential to our sovereignty. We are vulnerable, as are many other countries that have seen their economies destabilised by US sanctions and changes in customs policy. Trump does not negotiate, he enslaves; and we are not his partners, but his vassals. So, in this context, it's time for us to make a crucial choice: genuine solidarity-based protectionism, capable of reducing our dependence. Let's start with a "Buy European Act" to stop needing the US market to create jobs. Let's tax the rent on intellectual property: we have the means, only the political will to do so is needed. It is therefore time to make the choice to be unsubmissive in Washington!

Madam President, in a few days' time, NATO will meet to engrave in stone a senseless objective, to devote 5% of GDP to defence, or an additional $1.1 trillion a year, $1.1 trillion to lock itself in a logic of allegiance to the United States to run its war machine, even as Mr Trump disengages from the continent and deeply despises Europeans. 1,100 billion, in a context of fiscal austerity, is a policy choice with far-reaching consequences, because such spending will inevitably result in sacrifices in social spending. There is no more money for schools, hospitals, our public services, but there will be some to build your tanks. 1 100 billion is also what it would take to allow the countries of the South to respect the Paris Agreement and curb climate change. But you'd rather fire all the woods for the race to war than put out the planetary fire. Yet, climate change mitigation and adaptation, as you know, are major security issues. So the urgency is peace, independence, non-alignment, climate and social justice, and for all that we have to get out of NATO.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we must never forget the horror of this war. Never forget the faces of all those innocent people who perished in the camps or on the battlefields, nor those who bravely resisted for our freedom. Never forget that this total war was provoked by far-right regimes, because, yes, what makes the cement of our European societies is again threatened. The return in force of the extreme right jeopardizes the unity of the peoples by designating, as in 1940, enemies from within and by rejecting the rule of law, the guarantor of fundamental freedoms. By feeding on the rise of inequality, by trivializing hate speech, they create the ferment of division. Faced with this threat, let us remember that from the chaos of the Second World War came out a common heritage, that of the United Nations, an internationalism guided by an ideal of peace, cooperation and solidarity among peoples. A legacy that shows us the way and that must be protected. So, on this day of commemoration, let us not let forgetting invade our hearts. Let us keep this memory alive and continue to fight with strength and determination for a humanist and universalist project.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, commemorating the 110th anniversarye anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, it is not only a duty of remembrance, it is a demand for justice. The history of the Armenian people is an ever-living wound, a wound that challenges all of humanity. Victims and their descendants deserve their suffering to be fully recognised and their stories to continue to be heard. The scars are deep. More than 1.5 million men, women and children were exterminated through a campaign methodically orchestrated by the Ottoman Empire. Hundreds of thousands more had to be forced into exile, uprooted. The duty to remember is also to remember those who tried to warn while the European powers were silent. I am thinking in particular of Jaurès, who, referring to the massacres of Armenians that were already taking place in the Ottoman Empire at the time, said in 1896: ‘Humanity can no longer live with the corpse of a murdered people in its cellar.’ Commemorating is about honouring victims and remembering the need to relentlessly fight hatred, intolerance and indifference, so that such atrocities never happen again. At a time when Armenians are under renewed threat and Nagorno-Karabakh has been ethnically purged in the face of indifference from the European institutions, these commemorations have a special significance. They are an opportunity to reaffirm our unwavering support for the Armenian people, both today and yesterday. So let this 110e anniversary is a call to action, a call to defend human dignity, to break indifference and to finally build a just and lasting peace, in the region as everywhere in the world!

Madam President, let us remember: There are 306 000 direct jobs in Europe in steel and an industry that is absolutely essential for our autonomy in key sectors such as the automotive, construction and defence sectors. Entire regions depend on this industry. I am thinking in particular of Dunkirk, where 1 in 5 families depends on the steel industry. However, the future of this sector is under threat. In France, it is the blast furnaces as a whole that risk being relocated if we do not react quickly. So what does European steel suffer from? You talked about it: the volatility of energy prices, unfair competition allowed by free trade and massive relocations despite billions of public aid received. And what does the Commission propose? New free trade agreements, in particular with large steel producers such as India and Brazil – precisely where ArcelorMittal wants to relocate – and ever more speculation on energy prices by maintaining the liberalisation of energy markets. So, if we want to save the sector, we must go further, with much more protectionism, with a regulation of energy prices, leaving the European electricity market and with conditionalities of public aid to maintain jobs in Europe in particular.

Mr President, Commissioner, we all know this here: the price of electricity is crucial for our competitiveness. Electricity is three times more expensive in Europe than in our competitors. Unfortunately, your Affordable Energy Action Plan doesn't fix anything. You have an ambition to decouple the price of electricity from that of gas. This is a laudable goal and, moreover, Ursula von der Leyen also promised it in her State of the Union address in 2022. Yet, three years later, the price of gas is rising again and nothing is changing. On the other hand, nothing protects us from the U.S. president, who could threaten to raise LNG prices, which we import massively from the United States. We can no longer afford to pay once again the price of our dependence, whether on Russia or the United States. Many industrial sectors strategic for our sovereignty are at a standstill. Energy poverty affects 10% of European households. The solution, however, is simple, and we repeat it in committee, as here in the Chamber: propose an ambitious reform of the electricity market; have the courage to get out of the dogma of the market and to privilege the general interest, rather than those of the energy companies.

Mr President, at least two years ago, on the edges of Europe, a crime against humanity took place before our eyes in a deafening silence: more than 100,000 people forced into exile in Nagorno-Karabakh because they are Armenians; A deliberate attempt by the Aliev regime to erase a culture, history and identity that goes back millennia. In the face of this tragedy, Europe has not been up to the task, favouring its gas deal with Baku. Today, it can and must act to demand the release of Armenian prisoners held by Azerbaijan. There are still hundreds to be imprisoned and tortured, whose only crime is to have defended their land, their people and their rights. To not act is to send a clear message to Aliev. This means that it can extend its expansionist policy against Armenia, which it considers a province, with impunity. Thus, silence is not an option. We send a clear message: Armenia is not alone. We stand with him to uphold his territorial integrity, sovereignty and right to live in peace and security, without fear of further aggression by his Azerbaijani neighbour.

Mr President, Commissioner, thinking about the future of EU defence without thinking about the future of our defence industry is absurd. Thinking about the future of our defence industry without thinking about the future of Europe's heavy industries is a dead end. Take the example of the steel industry: on the latest news, to produce weapons, we need steel, except that Europe’s blast furnaces are closing one after the other, due to a lack of energy price regulation and protectionism. Thus, at the very moment when we are discussing autonomy in the field of defence, ArcelorMittal, which is bottled up for public aid, plans to relocate its production to India, where we will sign free trade agreements. Without European steel, there can be no truly autonomous European defence industry, and without an autonomous European industry, the EUR 800 billion announced by Ursula von der Leyen will have only one outlet: that of the US military industry. Let us therefore give ourselves the means of this autonomy, by radically changing our industrial and trade policies, by advocating less free trade and more protectionism, and by buying European.

Mr President, the right and the far right have been carrying together for years the same policy of deregulation that has ruined European competitiveness. Yes, it is the deregulation of the energy sector, the breakdown of public services and free trade that have caused us to lose entire parts of our economy and our ability to produce what we need ourselves. Take the example of the price of energy. During the energy crisis, instead of defending a return to regulated tariffs via public control of the energy sector, the far right supported, with the right, the maintenance of the market and the indexation of the price of electricity to the price of gas, which condemned thousands of companies. And what about their hatred of public services, their idols, Mr. Musk and Mr. Milei, who attack education, health, transportation? Without quality training, without access to healthcare for workers, without rail freight, what will remain of our competitiveness? In short, when the Patriots, who have only the name, defend the United States from Donald Trump, who threatens to ruin our economy and votes free trade agreements that destroy our sovereignty, well, we say, we will fight them with strength and determination by more social policy, more environmental policy, more public services and more protectionism in solidarity.

Mr President, I am taking the floor to alert you to the dramatic situation of the workers of the Cameroon Sugar Society. After several weeks of demanding payment of their wages, the workers were violently repressed by the authorities, resulting in several injuries and the death of one of them. To die while exercising their freedom to demonstrate and defend their rights is totally unacceptable. Respect for human rights is supposed to condition our trade relations, notably in the framework of the 2023 Samoa Agreement, which binds Cameroon and the European Union, and its Article 33 on decent work and compliance with ILO standards. The Cameroon Sugar Society must recognize as soon as possible and negotiate a way out of the crisis with the representative unions and in particular the Union of seasonal workers in the sugar cane sector. For its part, the Commission must act by calling on the French authorities and finally apply the legislation on due diligence so that the company is held to account. In case of non-respect of the fundamental freedoms of these workers, it will be necessary to consider the suspension of the trade agreements that bind us to Cameroon. There must be no exceptions to respect for human rights.

Mr President, the threats of Trump, who is considering annexing his Canadian neighbour as well as Greenland, must lead to an awareness of the danger that the United States may represent. They have long-standing ambitions in these territories, and their imperialist ambitions are becoming ever more present because of climate change. As we all know here, Trump's power over Canada's agricultural lands and Arctic resources. In this context, the consideration that US and European interests necessarily converge and that NATO ensures the peace and security of its members is totally discredited. It is therefore time for Europe to speak on its behalf and regain its independence from foreign powers. Let’s stop being aligned with Washington! This prevails militarily, but also economically, as the US trade war directly threatens our industries and millions of jobs in Europe due to a lack of protectionist trade policy. Colleagues, at a time when the clouds are piling up that herald the storm of war between great powers, the world needs more than ever a non-aligned Europe, ready to defend international law.

Mr President, despite Baku’s attempts to restore its coat of arms, as during the organisation of the last COP, the Aliyev regime is putting its people under the yoke of ever more violent repression. Human rights are systematically violated, and journalists are particularly targeted. Nearly 20 journalists have been arrested since 1 January on spurious charges, making Azerbaijan one of the worst countries for press freedom, according to Reporters Without Borders. Human Rights Watch also documented the torture and degrading treatment of 23 prisoners of war arrested during ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh. I am also thinking of our compatriot Theo Clerc, sentenced to three years in prison for graffiti because he is French, and because France defends Armenia’s sovereignty. Impunity must end against the actions of an increasingly repressive power towards its population and aggressive towards its Armenian neighbour. The European Union must act by ending the gas deal that binds us to Aliyev and demanding the release of all political prisoners and prisoners of war currently in the hands of the ruling power.

Mr President, for the purposes of the ecological bifurcation, 25 million jobs are needed. But how many of these jobs will remain unfilled for lack of properly trained workers and decent working conditions? Let's take a key sector: that of construction. We all know here that there is an urgent need to renovate buildings, as this is a major social issue for our citizens, who are struggling to stay and pay their energy bills, and an ecological issue, since buildings account for 40% of greenhouse gas emissions. Well, in this sector, labour shortages are a concern for 96% of companies. So why so few candidates? The Draghi report provides one explanation among others: unattractive wages, which contribute to this deficit in a sector that still has one death a day. So, if you want to talk competitiveness, fine! But you cannot do this without talking about social democracy, the promotion of these essential professions, continuous training, dignified working conditions, recognition of the arduous nature of work and ensuring a healthy and safe working environment for all. This is how we will make the jobs essential for green bifurcation attractive and fill the labour gap.

Madam President, European industrial policy is a fiasco. We are losing our strategic industries one after the other. After having lost our shipyards and our production of solar panels, it is the turn, today, of the automotive industry and its 13 million jobs. Why? Because the European Union is one of the most open markets in the world. As the U.S. and Canada decide to impose 100% on Chinese vehicles, it takes us 13 months to finally decide to increase tariffs on Chinese vehicles by 50%. And what about China's sold-out auto equipment, batteries and bumpers? Thousands of jobs in equipment manufacturers are threatened, so far, in the suburbs of Strasbourg. I advise you to go to the employees of these companies to explain that you will not do anything for them. So the thing is simple: finally understand that free and undistorted competition does not exist and put in place a genuine protectionist policy to save the car industry and, more generally, our industrial sovereignty.

Mr President, Commissioner, with this report you are generally congratulating yourself on the European Union's action on energy. You should, I think, send it to our fellow citizens, to the millions of them who are still struggling to get warm in the winter, to the local authorities who have to sacrifice their local public services to pay their electricity bills, to the thousands of companies that go bankrupt because of price volatility. It is wrong to say that prices are stabilizing. They are very high and they are superior to the pre-crisis and they will continue to increase. Why? Not least because, through the European electricity market, you have declared the end of regulated tariffs for 2025 and you decide to leave this essential good that is energy in the hands of the market. Madam, without planning, by the public authorities, of our needs and our production capacities, the energy security of the continent cannot be ensured. And let's say it clearly: betting everything on hydrogen, and SMRs that ultimately exist only on paper, to the detriment of existing sectors such as geothermal energy, is not the solution. So let us finally note the failure of the liberalisation of the energy sector and return to a real public electricity service.

Madam President, Ursula von der Leyen, it is ironic to come here and talk about competitiveness and a strong Europe, without any self-criticism about the neoliberal policies that you have carried and that have led us to where we are. Where can the difficulties of our industries vis-à-vis China, India or the United States come from? Perhaps because you are imposing competition and the destruction of our public industrial hubs, where China is planning the deployment of these strategic sectors. Perhaps because you are banning state aid, where the US is putting hundreds of billions of euros on the table for the green transition. Perhaps also because you are multiplying free trade agreements with states whose wages are ten times lower than ours, while China and the United States dare protectionism. Your dogmatic belief in free and undistorted competition was right yesterday in our shipyards and our textile industry. Today, they are right about our production of solar panels and our production of wind turbines. Tomorrow, they will also be right about our automotive industry. So that is enough, the liberalisation of strategic sectors, in particular the energy sector, the famous European energy market that you welcome today, while it is a real fiasco for our companies, households, craftsmen, VSEs and SMEs, which are going bankrupt because of energy prices. Do not come here to congratulate yourself, it is a real shame. Instead, I propose a proven solution: planning, protectionism, public intervention, social rights in strategic sectors and, throughout Europe, green reindustrialisation. At this price, we need it to live with dignity for all.