Speeches

Mr President, there are attacks on innocent civilians in Bogotá. These crimes are the work of armed groups that thrive on drug trafficking money. In some areas, the state has retreated and clan law is required, that of fear and violence. But make no mistake, this scourge is not confined to Latin America. In Marseille, in 2023, 47 people were killed by drug-related account settlements: a macabre record that illustrates the deep establishment of these criminal networks in our neighborhoods. In Antwerp, the main gateway to cocaine in Europe, hundreds of tons pass through each year. They fuel crime that plagues our societies, weakens our institutions and threatens the security of our fellow citizens. These examples belong to the same criminal chain that connects the cocaine growing areas in Colombia to the streets of our major European metropolises. It is a parallel economy of a colossal power that feeds violence, terrorism and corruption. Faced with this, two duties are required. Colombia must be able to restore its sovereignty and restore order to its territory. The European Union, for its part, cannot be satisfied with verbal condemnations. It must act: strengthening police and judicial cooperation, drying up financial channels and securing its external borders. To close our eyes to the direct link between terrorism and drug trafficking is to accept that this violence takes hold in our country. There is no other responsible path than that of firmness. Any renunciation would be a fault and any delay a danger to our peoples.

Madam President, for more than 700 days, 48 hostages have been held by Hamas. 48 lives suspended, half presumed dead, the other still held. Faces that we forget too quickly. Screams that no one should ignore. And what is Europe doing? She's talking. She talks a lot, but in a vacuum. Like King Lear, Shakespeare, she handles great speeches, but never acts to save those in need. Europe wants to be powerful, but it is actually ghostly. Meanwhile, famine is on the rise in Gaza. Yes, we must help civilians, but we must never strengthen a terrorist organization. However, the European Union distributes millions of euros and votes resolutions, without control, without result. While others are taking concrete initiatives, Europe is ridiculed by its impotence. We are still being told about a two-state solution. This is a long-term horizon that we do not reject. But today, the reality is that such a project would lead to a Hamas state, that is, a terrorist state. As long as this continues, peace will remain an illusion. Politics is not words, it is deeds: acts to free the hostages, acts to protect the innocent, acts to guarantee Israel's security.

Madam President, Commissioner, it has been six hundred and forty-one days since Israeli hostages were held by Hamas – six hundred and forty-one days of waiting, suffering and silence for families abandoned by the international community. While negotiations are stalling in Doha, Israel continues to defend its people, alone in the face of an Islamist coalition – Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, all of whom are funded and armed by Iran. What we see is a strategic, methodical undertaking from Tehran to encircle, weaken and ultimately destroy the only stable democracy in the region. It is not a local conflict, it is a hybrid, regional, ideological war: a war against the West. Meanwhile, the European Union is playing the game of balance. It distributes humanitarian aid that too often falls into the wrong hands. It condemns the violence without ever naming the aggressors. She calls on Israel, which was the victim of a pogrom on 7 October, to exercise restraint. But Israel is doing what we have never had the courage to do: fighting Islamism without naivety, without dual language. He's our bulwark. He is our natural ally in this war of civilization that many still refuse to see. It is time to take our side: that of democracies, that of firmness, that of freedom.

Madam President, last Monday, a French journalist, Christophe Gleizes, was sentenced to seven years in prison in Algeria. On Tuesday, Boualem Sansal, an 80-year-old French-Algerian writer with cancer, was detained for five years. His crime? To have thought freely. Meanwhile, France is silent. The European Union continues to finance this scheme – EUR 172 million between 2021 and 2024. Two Frenchmen imprisoned and not a single sanction. Not a suspension of cooperation. It is no longer naivety, it is submission. Boualem Sansal wrote in his book 2084: “Lie is sacred, truth is ungodly, freedom is blasphemy, submission is virtue.” This sentence not only describes an authoritarian regime, it describes the attitude of our leaders towards it. Because, finally, what are we talking about? A regime that gags its intellectuals, imprisons journalists, brutalises its people, denies religious freedom and expels migrants to our shores while insulting us. And we pay. We are subsidizing this repression. Where is France’s honour? Where is Europe's sovereignty? Why continue to pay millions to those who lock up our fellow citizens and trample on our core values? It is time for France to raise its head. It is time for Europe to stop paying those who persecute our compatriots and humiliate our flag.

Madam President, Madam President von der Leyen, ladies and gentlemen, Europe deserves better than silence, better than opacity, better than bureaucratic authoritarianism. For six years now, you have been leading this Commission with a Jupitian verticality, cut off from realities, cut off from peoples, cut off even too often from the values that founded our continent. Pfizergate is not an administrative error: This is an abuse of power. €35 billion of public money negotiated via SMS, without a call for tenders, without a mandate, without transparency. This has been confirmed by the Court of Justice of the European Union: you have acted alone, outside any democratic framework. This is not just your fault. It symbolizes an even more serious drift, that of a Europe governed in the shadow of the peoples. Under your authority, the Commission has become the armed arm of private interests, militant NGOs, diminishing ideologies, sometimes even alien to the foundations of our civilisation. What you call ‘transition’, thousands of Europeans live it as punishment; what you call "green compact", our farmers, our craftsmen, our industrialists suffer it as a strangulation; and what you call "European values" all too often seems like censorship of people who dare to think otherwise. So is this the Europe you are defending, madam? A Europe where decisions are taken without debate, a Europe that would sign, behind the backs of citizens, trade agreements such as that of Mercosur, which will expose our sectors even more to unfair competition, a Europe that weakens nations while dreaming of getting worse? So, no, Mrs von der Leyen, this Europe is not ours. Ours is freedom, respect for identities, sovereignty, democratic choices, the one that protects, builds, listens; Not the one that imposes. Today, in conscience, we will vote on this motion of censure. This vote is not just an act of opposition, it is an act of responsibility, because it is no longer just a matter of disavowal, it is a matter of saying that another path is possible. A path where Europe becomes again a project and a promise, not a system, a superimposition of norms and threats. The peoples of Europe do not need an all-powerful Commission, they need a Europe in their own image, and if this mandate is to end with a strong signal, then this is: the return of politics, the return of the people, the return of reality.

Mr President, while Qatargate splattered the European left, it is now the turn of Spain's socialist power to be at the centre of a major corruption scandal. A recent investigation report of nearly 500 pages has highlighted a widespread system of bribes between relatives of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and entrepreneurs. However, the case does not end there: his wife is herself under investigation for trading in influence, his brother is sent to court in another case related to the Socialist Party, and filled with cynicism, the public prosecutor's office, led by a personality now herself indicted, has systematically defended them. If the European Commission claims to defend the rule of law, let it first sweep the door of its socialist allies, instead of turning it into a weapon against right-wing governments. As for Olivier Faure, who is always quick to lecture my party, let him at least have the decency to condemn the actions of his Spanish ally in the European Parliament.

Madam President, Commissioner, the European Commission, supported by the left, is using its annual report on the rule of law situation in the Member States to impose its Wokist ideology and put pressure on right-wing governments. While there is no clear and precise definition of this concept of the rule of law, Brussels is using its non-compliance as a pretext to deprive Hungary and, in the past, Poland of EU funds. This pseudo-report is based on activist NGOs such as theOpen Society George Soros or actors with blatant conflicts of interest. In France, for example, Reporters Without Borders defames to the Commission the director of the Journal du Dimanche, Geoffroy Lejeune, calling him, I quote, an extreme right-winger. The same association received EUR 71.4 million from the Commission between 2014 and 2023. On the other hand, in Brussels, nothing is said about the abusive closure of a television channel and the political condemnation of the main presidential candidate, Marine Le Pen. Let the European Commission stop its hypocrisy. If she really cares about the rule of law she starts by sweeping outside her door.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union is celebrating 40 years of the Schengen Agreement, but what exactly are we celebrating? The programmed failure of a system incapable of protecting peoples. This system, originally based on international cooperation, was however based on a simple idea: free movement could only exist if the external borders were strictly protected. This promise has never been fulfilled. The Commission has arrogated its powers to the detriment of States and has never carried out its mission. Since 2022, more than one million illegal crossings of the external borders have been detected, not counting previous waves. Meanwhile, the number of returns of illegal migrants to their countries of origin is ridiculous. Today, only smugglers and complicit NGOs have something to rejoice about. In the face, and in the face of this migratory submergence fed by M's pro-migrant ideologyme von der Leyen, states have no choice but to re-establish their national borders. The Commission dares to write – I quote – that ‘Schengen has become a resilient system [...], based on effective management of the external borders’. Brussels lives above ground. My group, the Patriots for Europe, demands a return to reality. We want the external borders of the European Union to finally be strictly protected so that free movement is truly possible, asylum seekers to be returned to centres outside the continent, illegal migrants to be returned to their countries of origin, NGOs complicit in smugglers to be sanctioned, police cooperation through Europol to be strengthened and, finally, the asylum and migration pact to be abandoned. If Brussels refuses to do the job, voters can count on my group to do it.

I listened well, I heard well, I also went to Israel and I heard victims, survivors. In my speech, I spoke about humanitarian aid and said that, if the European Union is to play a useful role, it must ensure that it is able to allow humanitarian aid access, but it must also ensure that this humanitarian aid is not diverted by Hamas. War is always something terrible; There are victims, innocent victims, but today in Gaza there are Palestinians who are victims of Hamas fanaticism, because Hamas uses the civilian population there as a human shield.

592 days ago, on October 7, 2023, Hamas revealed the most abject face of fanaticism: families massacred, women raped, children abducted and then executed with bare hands like the little Kfir Bibas. That day, humanity wavered. To this day, 58 hostages are still being held in Hamas tunnels. Only 20 are confirmed alive. It's been 592 days. Israel, like any free nation, has the right to live in security and the duty to defend itself against those who call for its annihilation. The European Union must demand, without weakness, the release of the hostages and, if it wants to play a useful role, it must protect humanitarian aid while preventing it from being used by Hamas. To recognize a Palestinian state without breaking with terrorism is to capitulate, it is to legitimize the executioners of October 7. Peace will not come from complacency, it will come from clarity.

Madam President, I would like to make a point of order under Rules 22(5) and 40(1) of the European Parliament's Rules of Procedure. On Monday 12 May, the German organisation Arbeiterwohlfahrt organised an immigration exhibition on Parliament's esplanade. At the information stand, the organiser distributed stickers inciting physical violence against the European agency Frontex and representing a Molotov cocktail, as well as leaflets sponsored by Islamic Relief, an organisation linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. We request clarification from the President: Did she approve this exhibition? Was she aware of the content of the stickers and leaflets distributed at this event? Did the European Parliament fund this event? We look forward to a firm response from you. We cannot tolerate, let alone welcome, an organisation which encourages physical violence against European Union agencies and which associates itself, at least indirectly, with terrorist organisations.

Mr President, for years we have been warning about the financing of entities with Islamist affiliations. The Islamic University of Gaza, Hamas' stronghold, received more than 1.7 million euros between 2014 and 2022. In Turkey, the Gaziantep University of Science, part of the Erasmus+ programme, paid tribute, I quote, "to the mujahideen of 7 October". In addition, associations receiving European funding have close links with the Muslim Brotherhood. Among them, ENAR, whose former director admitted to being part of this movement, was financed with 2.2 million euros for the period 2023-2026. Faced with these excesses, some political groups, notably the Greens, continue to support these entities, hindering any attempt to stop funding. We must put an end to this complacency. European taxpayers' money must not be used to finance our enemies. So yes, this Europe must choose its side. Does it want to continue to finance, even indirectly, those who glorify terrorism or finally defend its values, its security and its peoples?

Madam President, let us look at what is happening in Hungary, but also in France. For years, Viktor Orbán has been accused of flouting the rule of law and muzzling the opposition, controlling the media: Brussels indignant, threat of sanctions. But when this real muzzling happens in France, it is total silence. Today, Marine Le Pen, the candidate of millions of French people, is prevented from running in an election. An unjustifiable decision, because no recidivism is possible. This is a democratic scandal! What would it be like if Viktor Orbán's main opponent were prevented from running in the elections? In France, we are witnessing an unprecedented authoritarian drift: After the brutal closure of C8, a popular television channel, we are trying to neutralize the opposition. But where are those who denounced Orbán yesterday? Where are those who cried out for dictatorship elsewhere and are now turning a blind eye? All over the world, from Poland to Romania, Germany to the United States, there are attempts to eliminate the voice of the people. And now, it is in France that we seek to neutralize Marine Le Pen judicially. Our opponents know they can't beat us at the polls, so they try to eliminate us otherwise, but we won't let them. It is time to open our eyes, mobilize and defend the rule of law, for the respect of the people and democracy.

Madam President, five hundred and forty-three days. Five hundred and forty-three days and 59 hostages still held by Hamas, including 24 presumed to be alive. Five hundred and forty-three days of anguish and suffering. In Israel, we have seen the unspeakable: women raped before being massacred, families annihilated, children torn from their parents. The images were unbearable. Last week, a conference in the European Parliament told us this horror: mass rape used as a weapon of war, absolute barbarism. Yet some still turn a blind eye. The far left refuses to see the truth. It refuses to call Hamas a terrorist, spreads its hate propaganda and justifies the unjustifiable. But today, even in Gaza, people are rising up against Hamas, against those who use it as a human shield. Here, some are calling for an immediate ceasefire, without even demanding the release of the hostages – an unacceptable compromise. We say it here forcefully: There can be no peace without justice and there can be no ceasefire without the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. Five hundred and forty-three days is already too much. Inaction and cowardice must stop.

Mr President, the European Commission is today presenting its Internal Security Strategy. Since the fight against terrorism is one of them, Brussels must set an example by finally stopping, as Marine Le Pen has been demanding for years, the disbursement of European funds to organisations close to the Muslim Brotherhood. Radical Islam, which kills, wounds and psychologically bruises thousands of our compatriots across Europe, does not have to be subsidised by the European Union. Brussels must also stop playing the ideological game of Islamists. On 29 March, the Collective Against Islamophobia in Europe, the new name of the CCIF – an organisation banned in France – relayed a video by European Commissioner Hadja Lahbib. This was only possible because the latter echoed exactly the rhetoric of the Muslim Brotherhood. Finally, Brussels must put pressure on third countries to take back their illegally present nationals. Many indeed threaten our security. Otherwise, the European Union will become the main accomplice of those who want to destroy it.

Madam President, democracy is the right of peoples to freely choose their leaders. But in France, this right has just been violated. Marine Le Pen, leader of the opposition and favourite in the presidential election, was sentenced to ineligibility with immediate execution. While there is no corruption or personal enrichment in this case, the court has taken a political decision that deprives the French of their choice. The rule of law presupposes a right to a remedy. Here, the penalty applies immediately, even before any final judgment. This is an unprecedented drift. Will the European Union, always quick to give lessons in democracy, remain silent in the face of this instrumentalisation of justice? We will not let democracy be confiscated.

Mr President, in a hundred days, the new von der Leyen Commission is showing a worrying inconsistency. While it had promised more competitiveness, more simplification and stronger migration control, no concrete progress can be seen. European industry remains hampered by cumbersome bureaucracy, while illegal immigration is worsening. Faced with the rise of popular rejection, Ursula von der Leyen tries to rectify the situation, abandoning certain ecological commitments deemed too restrictive and hardening her position on certain issues. However, these adjustments seem opportunistic and lack long-term vision. Worse still, the Commission continues to assume a defence role, although this area does not fall within its competences, according to the Treaties. Rather than correcting its mistakes, Brussels persists in a centralising drift, moving ever further away from the expectations of European citizens. These hundred days confirm one thing: Under this presidency, the European Union is both inconsistent and disconnected from reality. There is an urgent need to change course.

Madam President, for years the European Union has promised to fight illegal immigration, but the reality has not changed. Today, the Commission is presenting a return regulation, but is this proposal really firm? No sanctioning mechanism is provided for third countries that refuse to take back their nationals in an irregular situation: Schengen visa restrictions and economic and financial sanctions. Without pressure, these countries will continue not to cooperate, leaving Europe destitute. Moreover, too many procedural safeguards weaken the effectiveness of evictions. Illegals can increase the number of appeals and benefit from automatic legal assistance. Worse still, unaccompanied minors and families with children are excluded from the proposed new measures. Without firmness towards them, the migration air call will continue. Appeals against expulsions will no longer be automatically suspensive, but judges will still have too wide a margin of discretion allowing them to delay removals indefinitely. Finally, verification of the age of migrants remains too lax. There is still no bone test, leading to excessive fraud. Brussels claims to act, but if Brussels really wants to act effectively, unnecessary compromises with those who will always seek to thwart the fight against illegal immigration must be rejected. We, the Patriots for Europe, will carry in this Parliament the voice of the 20 million voters who call for firmness against illegal immigration.

Madam President, a few weeks ago, we learned that the Commission was funding, through taxpayers’ money, a gigantic network of environmental NGOs, a veritable relay for its propaganda. Now we learn that the Commission is also funding other NGOs in various fields with hundreds of millions of euros. Behind this funding lies a genuine activist network that, with taxpayers’ money, encourages mass immigration, blocks expulsions and fights against states that defend their sovereignty. Brussels funds those who sabotage our democracies, spread Wokist poison or impose a punitive ecology on Europeans, while our industries collapse and our peoples become impoverished. It is time to put an end to this EU-funded propaganda. European money must be used for the benefit of Europeans, not for Brussels ideologies and its lobbies.

Madam President, Sweden, once a security model in Europe, is now plagued by gang violence. Shootings in the middle of the street, criminal explosions, entire neighborhoods under the influence of mafias: This chaos is the direct result of years of migratory laxity and culpable ideological blindness. The numbers speak for themselves. In 2023, Sweden recorded 53 homicides linked to gang wars, one of the highest rates in Europe. 76% of the main gang members are immigrants or children of immigrants. This crime, fuelled by massive immigration and the total failure of integration, transforms entire parts of the country into lawless zones. Even the Swedish Minister of Justice now acknowledges that this violence will take more than a decade to eradicate. After years of laxity, the Swedish government is now trying to save the furniture by considering the expulsion of foreign criminals. Because the responsibility for this security fiasco is political. It should be remembered that it was the political family of Ylva Johansson, former European Commissioner for Home Affairs, who governed Sweden by applying this policy of open migration without control. This same Commissioner, who explained just a few months ago that Europe does not have an immigration problem, bears a heavy responsibility for this security catastrophe. We must learn from this Swedish failure and be firm. What is needed now is zero impunity for foreign criminals and immediate deportation. We need a real legal and material rearmament of the forces of law and order. The European Union no longer has a choice, it must put an end to the massive immigration that feeds the failure of integration and fuels this violence. Sweden is a warning. If we do not act now, France, for example, will have the same fate. What we expect today is a Europe that protects its peoples, not a Europe of migratory chaos and security laxity.

Madam President, Commissioner Brunner, the latest UN report on the links between migrant smuggling and other forms of organised crime is overwhelming. Around 90% of migrants arriving illegally in the EU are smuggled. This includes kidnapping, extortion, detention, rape and exploitation. Under the pretext of combating this abominable trafficking in human beings, this report recommends, like the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, increasing the number of so-called safe and legal migration routes to the European Union. Therefore, to legalise illegal immigration. However, such pathways will not only never prevent parallel smuggling of migrants, but, worse, they will attract even more. When the report finds that harsher migration policies would expose migrants to aggravated forms of trafficking, it is still grossly mistaken. It is by massively discouraging migrants from coming to us that we will reduce the number of people trafficked. We, the Patriots for Europe Group, demand strong measures, both to protect our continent and to stop this trafficking. In particular, we want genuine external borders, the creation of a stability fund for asylum intended for the reception of migrants in third countries, asylum applications to be made outside the EU, the European Commission to finally finance physical barriers, the payment of official development aid to be conditional on the recovery of illegal migrants by their country of origin, family reunification to be drastically restricted and NGOs complicit in the mafias to be severely punished. The time is no longer for words, but for action.

Madam President, in Europe, millions of people with disabilities, visible or invisible, are abandoned by politicians who claim to defend solidarity, but forget most of it. In France, it was not until 2024 that a law was passed finally allowing the reimbursement of wheelchairs, and in the European institutions, including Parliament, the special needs of some colleagues are not taken into account. Meanwhile, billions of euros are being injected into the reception of migrants under the impetus of the European Commission, which is imposing ruinous quotas and reception policies on our states. How can we justify the fact that this money is not primarily used to guarantee an accessible school or transport, adapted aids or devices for the autonomy of people with disabilities? This European Union of elites, unable to protect its own, has no lesson in solidarity. We, the Patriots, defend another priority: putting people back at the centre, protecting our citizens and putting Europeans first, especially those who suffer and have been abandoned for too long.

I hope that the rule of law exists in Romania, and it is in order for it to continue to exist that I express what I have just said. It is absolutely astonishing to see, for the first time in history, it seems to me – at least for many years – that a presidential election in this part of Europe is cancelled between the two rounds – and, at the time it was cancelled, there was no basis, at least no evidence, they were just allegations. So, in general, the election judge, when it comes to the Constitutional Council, decides once the second round is over. That is what I meant.

Mr President, today, social networks like X or TikTok have become battlegrounds for our democracy. But let's not be naive: behind the beautiful speeches of Brussels on the fight against disinformation, there is a clear desire to muzzle those who really defend the people in the face of a system that confiscates freedoms. The European Commission claims to protect our democracies, but its solutions are always to monitor, censor and control. Removing anonymity or filtering content is another step towards a censorship society, and citizens know it: 64% of French people believe that violations of individual freedoms have worsened over the past ten years, according to a Senate figure. Today, the mindset promoted by the European Commission leads to unprecedented situations, where an election is interrupted between two rounds, without formal evidence. This is what is happening in Romania today. But let’s be clear, this is a precedent that could be replicated elsewhere in the EU to impose the system’s unique thinking. We Patriots stand for free public debate and accessible information. Social networks must remain spaces where everyone can express themselves freely, without fear of being gagged by a Brussels machine of ideological control.

Mr President, the latest Europol report highlights the culpable inaction of our leaders in the face of a growing terrorist threat in Europe. With 120 attacks recorded in 2023, it is European citizens who are paying the high price for this growing insecurity. Even more worrying: Jihadist terrorism remains the deadliest, causing the death of many innocent people. In addition, there have been hundreds of arrests for terrorist offences, mainly related to jihadism. What is the EU doing to stop this threat? Our borders remain sieves, the new European files of the entry-exit system for border control are at least three years behind schedule, extremist propaganda thrives online, and young people are targeted by destructive ideologies. We demand a start, which will necessarily involve the restoration of our borders, the systematic expulsion of individuals registered for radicalisation and zero tolerance towards those who jeopardise our security. It is time to finally protect the French and Europeans and defend our civilization against its enemies, who want its loss.