Speeches

Madam President, yesterday was International Women's Day. With this initiative, I had the hope that, for once, the good feelings of the European Parliament would lead to something balanced. Unfortunately, we always find the usual flaws: the pervasiveness of the gender dimension in EU policies and funding, the promotion of quotas rather than merit, administrative overload, the family dimension only addressed in order to tackle the distribution of informal work, calls for Commission interventions in our pension systems. This text is that of a centralised Union, it compromises the principle of subsidiarity, our economic freedoms and our competitiveness. While it is obvious that equal pay for equal work must be equal, I regret that this text makes the intersectionality of struggles its spearhead. I regret that it kills our systems of family cohesion that make up the humanity of our peoples. I regret that, instead of encouraging the peoples, the Member States themselves, to produce policies that promote women's freedom of choice, for example by promoting childcare facilities, it calls on the Commission to impose more and more constraints, more and more ideology, more and more everything ... except judges. (Speaker refuses two blue card questions from João Oliveira and Lukas Sieper)

Mr President, limiting subcontracting is the archetype of the false good idea. Under the pretext of fighting against real abuses, this text proposes to delete everything instead of correcting what does not work. To continue your logic, let's remove all companies, since some of them are fraud. It makes no sense, in addition to overstepping your skills. Even the IMCO Committee sees how close the Employment Committee is to the plate. To arbitrarily limit subcontracting to two levels, to impose a generalized responsibility of the principals, is to create a bureaucratic gas plant. These drastic measures will first penalize our SMEs and craftsmen, without stopping the real fraudsters. The rapporteur is under illusions: More European standards won't stop rogue companies. The real cause of these abuses is uncontrolled immigration and fraudulent detachment, which fuel exploitation and undeclared work. Because we reject gold-plating, which is the wrong target, we will vote against it.

Madam President, in politics, good intention is not enough to make a good resolution. Here we are debating how to fight poverty. Who could morally oppose it? This does not prevent this subject from being treated seriously, above low electoral considerations. When we seek to stem poverty, we talk about the subject as a whole. There is no Community catalogue of those who are more legitimate to be helped than others, as mentioned in Article 4 of your resolution. When we seek to fight poverty, we seek to create wealth, not to put a band-aid on the failures of the European Commission. The mention of respect for the sovereignty of our nations must not be empty words either. However, social policy and housing are a major responsibility of the Member States. The role of the European Union is to ensure growth-generating economic dynamism. As we express in our alternative resolution, poverty will be eradicated through work, wealth creation and respect for each other's skills.

Mr President, as usual, the parliamentary majority, including the far left, is increasingly calling on the European Commission. Rather than respecting the principle of subsidiarity, everything is good to subject national social policies to the injunctions of Brussels. As usual, it calls on the Commission to ensure that mass immigration is facilitated by promoting the mobility of third-country nationals. As usual, she asked the Commission to interfere in social dialogue and labour law in housing policies. And, icing on the cake, these parliamentarians are demanding more and more public expenditure to finance programmes that are not even of European competence. Among the Patriots, we refuse to sacrifice the freedom of our nations to reclaim some meagre benefits that you have been unable to obtain nationally. Instead of constantly trying to circumvent the Treaties, focus on the competences of the European Union. These priorities should be to guarantee our independence, sovereignty and prosperity, not to decide how we should manage social policies.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the nodular skin disease affecting cattle farms demonstrates inadequate crisis management, disconnected from agricultural realities. The systematic slaughter of whole herds, from the first identified case, is not a balanced health policy, but an administrative violence. For farmers, these are not figures: years of work destroyed, families weakened and farms condemned. Already weakened by your free trade treaties and through the accumulation of your Today, farmers are subject to decisions far from grasslands and barns. The defense of French breeders requires a change of course: targeted herd quarantine, enhanced veterinary surveillance, an effective vaccination plan, accompanied by a relaxation of EU rules – which penalise exports – and a serious reassessment of compensation commensurate with genetic work and psychological and economic damage. Europe cannot ignore those who guarantee its food sovereignty. Will the Commission, ever more quick to spend billions in the world, finally remember those who feed Europeans?

Madam President, the protection of minors online must be our priority. With this resolution, the European Union is moving in the right direction, but this is just the beginning. We need to go further to preserve our children, forcing platforms to neutralize radical propaganda content. Platforms, through their algorithms and business logic, allow manipulative, addictive and sometimes dangerous content to thrive. In these bankruptcies, radical ideologies, whether religious, political or sectarian, find fertile ground to recruit. The figures circulating in France on the Islamic radicalization of young people must alert us, not to point the finger at a community, but to open our eyes to a reality. Radicalization is progressing where the state, schools and social networks are retreating. We can no longer be satisfied with half-measures. The fight against Islamism must be a national and European priority, with increased means, increased control and unambiguous political will to protect our children, our national cohesion and the values that make France and Europe. We must act firmly, lucidly, and now.

Mr President, as we have always said, support for the Ukrainian people in the face of Russian aggression is legitimate. Targeted sanctions can be effective if they weaken the aggressor without punishing our own peoples. However, the energy sanctions on Russian gas are a blatant failure. Moscow continues to sell its gas, including to the European Union, through absurd detours, including Azerbaijan, which supplies the European Union with gas bought from Russia. What hypocrisy! Meanwhile, our citizens, especially French, are paying the bill: Explosion of bills, business failures, energy poverty. France, despite being a nuclear champion, is being sacrificed by an unfair European energy market that benefits countries like Germany. So let's be clear: sanctions, yes, but useful. Let us stop applying measures that weaken Europe far more than Russia. It is not up to our peoples to pay for the ideological blindness of Brussels and Berlin. We want peace, we want sovereignty, and that starts with regaining control of our energy.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as usual, the European Union wants to be involved in everything. Nothing escapes him, nothing resists him. All the problems of social life will sooner or later bend under its centralizing yoke. This time it is about social dialogue. The Commission and its supporters in Parliament want to coerce as many companies as possible. Far from us the society of freedoms promised at the beginning of the Union. From now on, Brussels intends to meddle in every corner of our businesses to impose its social engineering. And what about this pseudo-feminism that claims to defend women while reducing them to mere quotas? And as always, the Commission is stubborn in its Berlin version of Europe. She believes that trade unionism works everywhere as in Germany. It's a big mistake. What is acceptable there is not necessarily acceptable in France, where the culture of social dialogue is profoundly different. Our companies are not intended to finance structures whose main activity is to block their production. Worse still, the text provides that trade unions can apply to the courts to block their production. Who will dare to innovate in a Europe where every project risks being paralyzed by these new European soviets, even though our companies are being required to become more competitive and to restrict their freedom and productivity? This text, under the guise of social progress, is nothing more than a disguised return to state leadership.

Madam President, Commissioner, cohesion policy is a central element of European construction and solidarity. That the richest help the poorest is the cement of Europe. Unfortunately, these fine principles are often tarnished when the Commission gets involved. Today, the money collected goes through a Brussels bureaucracy that does not hesitate to use the money of the Member States to advance its own agenda, even if it is beyond its powers. To channel funds through the Commission is to give it power which we know will invariably be used to crush national wills. Last overflow to date: some want to divert the use of cohesion policy to invest in defence, a competence which, as everyone knows, is by no means within the Commission's remit. Moreover, the principle of solidarity is that the strongest help the weakest. It is still necessary to guarantee the prosperity of those who produce the financial effort. However, M’s doormat behaviourme von der Leyen vis-à-vis Donald Trump this summer blatantly demonstrates that she is incapable of protecting our European interests.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union shamelessly flouts our French winegrowers. While our winegrowers, suffocated by a relentless crisis – sales collapsing, unpredictable climate, unsustainable loads – Brussels, in a surge of generosity as senseless as it is outrageous, pours EUR 15 million to inflate the production of South African wines. For so-called inclusive growth with dubious criteria, our terroirs, our centuries-old heritage and our families of winegrowers are extinguished under your contempt. What is this aberrant logic? When our winegrowers plead for help, to save their vineyards, they are told: “No money.” But for competitors, money flows, as if by magic. This circus is an insult to our rural heroes, to those who wear the colors of France. How long will we endure this betrayal? We, the Rassemblement National and the Patriotes pour l’Europe, demand massive funds for our winegrowers and demand the suspension of this shameful subsidy.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, give administrative assistance to people with disabilities and you can allow them to live. Give them autonomy, and we can give them back their freedom. Among the Patriots, we defend freedom in the face of ubiquitous administrations. It is a good thing that no one is left behind. This also applies to people with disabilities, who are largely dependent on state action to alleviate their additional difficulties. Freedom is first and foremost the absence of dependence on third parties, whether individuals or public institutions. It is necessary to guarantee the possibility, for those who want it, for those who can, to live for themselves and for themselves. This includes being able to work in fair conditions, which will guarantee them greater autonomy and dignity, rather than passively depending on the constant assistance of a nanny state, which is also often failing. This freedom must be equal for all, regardless of where they live, whether urban or rural. No one, no territory, should be forgotten, because all too often, in this policy as in others, our campaigns are left behind. History shows that, even in a situation of disability, a person who is given the opportunity can advance all of humanity. Stephen Hawking, a prestigious physicist, is probably the greatest embodiment. Let’s try to ensure that other big names can emerge in its wake.

Mr President, what a farce! The Birds Directive sets the standard for the protection of Natura 2000 species and habitats, but the future Dunkirk offshore wind farm is blithely trampling on these commitments. Studies prove this: the avian fauna is in serious danger. Seabirds and migratory birds have not signed for this carnage orchestrated by these flying guillotines. The stop at Aumelas Park in France tells us firmly: biodiversity must demolish the mercantile ambitions of your living room ecologist friends. This project does not comply with the Birds Directive. By sheer obsession with your subsidized windmills, you are putting our avian species and biodiversity at risk. What specific measures will spare the natural habitats of these Natura 2000 areas, particularly in Flanders? The Commission is quicker to turn a blind eye to the actions of European energy lobbyists than to preserve industries that are essential for Europe. Europe's credibility and the end of its double moral standard are at stake here.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, for decades the European Commission has only played the game of excessive liberalism and unbridled globalisation. This disastrous policy initially had the effect of creating a significant divide between rich urban areas, connected to the world, and rural areas, sometimes landlocked and much more economically fragile. Yet rural areas, the beating heart of our identity, cover 83% of Europe's territory and a quarter of its population. The European Union's cohesion policy must stop being an empty shell and become the spearhead of a rural upsurge and a return of agricultural and industrial power. Our countryside is not just agricultural land, it guarantees our food sovereignty and is the guardian of our millennial heritage that Brussels despises and seeks to erase. We demand massive investments in agriculture, transport, industry and digital transformation to bring our territories back to life. In the same way that a large company cannot live without a network of suitable SMEs, no major metropolis can do without rural areas to exist. This resolution is therefore a hand extended to the Commission to make up for the mistakes of the past. Let's restore the economic model of our campaigns. Do you want a sustainable Europe? Let's restore the short circuits. Do you want to reindustrialize? Let's run factories in our medium-sized cities that depend on it. Let us support national initiatives in this direction, without stifling them with unnecessary and counterproductive regulations, as you know so well how to do. Our campaigns deserve respect, means and autonomy. Our future will be assured.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you want to make life affordable, but in reality, the subject is not well laid out. Today, it is the European Union that is unaffordable: In France, the Maastricht Treaty, the founding text of the European Union, is still synonymous with economic decline. The French gave everything for Europe, but what did Europe give them? Their factories have closed, relocated elsewhere in Europe or, worse, in Asia. Raised for job protection, then. The Schengen area has become a migratory sieve favouring illegal labour immigration that pulls wages down. Raised again to protect wages. As far as health is concerned, it is not a European competence – and fortunately! – when one sees how Mrs von der Leyen negotiates contracts secretly, by SMS, and against any democratic principle. If we must protect Europeans today, it is against this Brussels technocracy, which reasons only by ideology, completely off the ground and unable to really question itself.

I do not have much to answer that question. I see indeed that the European Green Deal is responsible for the exorbitant and unstable price of energy currently, as well as for the closure of 66 000 companies in France alone. You're responsible. The European Commission is responsible, and I will quote Einstein: We must not rely on those who created the problems to solve them.

Madam President, as with democracy, when the European Union touches something, it destroys it. The Suicidal Union is now led by a deaf and blind Commission. Unable to question herself, she accelerates towards the wall of destruction. For Empress von der Leyen and her prefects, if the European energy market does not work, it is because there is not yet enough market. Any questioning is inconceivable to you. Your philosophy leads you to aggravate the pressure on our companies and multiply their difficulties. When the European Union touches on our energy policy, our companies see their bills skyrocket. When the European Union creates a commission for the democratic shield, it sits on political opposition. And if by misfortune some European citizens were to seriously challenge your rule, then you are ignoring your values! Faced with your technocratic tyranny, we will always support our businesses, we will defend our freedoms and we will always be behind Marine Le Pen, who has always devoted herself to her nation, and who will therefore forever be more respectable than all those stateless papercrackers whose only vocation is to crush our peoples!

Madam President, Madam rapporteur, as usual, the European Union is playing firefighter. The aim of this resolution is indeed nothing more or less than to correct the mistakes of other decisions taken by the European Union. Its neoliberal policy is steeped in green ideology, damaging our economy and destroying our businesses and jobs. Faced with this alarming observation, far from wanting to question itself, some in this assembly play apprentice sorcerers to camouflage their incompetence. They claim to avoid economic redundancies by putting our companies in the hands of trade unions, hoping to avoid redundancies and make European entrepreneurs and investors pay the bill directly. However, when all have deserted Europe and its sterile technocracy, who will remain to invest in our economy and avoid redundancies? In truth, this resolution is the embodiment of ostrich politics. With you, only appearances matter – and pray that the house of cards does not collapse until after you leave! And after you, the flood! What is needed is not to add Europe above Europe. You propose to correct the symptoms; we propose to treat the disease. Do you want to mitigate the consequences of the Green Deal? As proposed by Jordan Bardella and the Patriots for Europe, take responsibility and remove it! As we state in our alternative resolution, to improve the competitiveness of our businesses, we must help them, not stifle them.

Madam President, the situation in Syria is dramatic. If the civil war seems to be over, we must not lift our surveillance. Just because the de facto Syrian president put on a tie does not mean that he is no longer the heir to al-Qaeda. Predictably, massacres are currently being committed against the country's Christian and Alawite minorities. I would therefore like to recall that respect for minorities is crucial, and I have a particular thought for these new victims of Islamist barbarism. In light of recent events, preventing a second Afghanistan from happening on our doorstep becomes vital. It would be a human tragedy and an unprecedented threat to Europe. Finally, the European Union wants to talk about a just transition with Islamists who have been the main actors in international terrorist attacks, with a totalitarian and retrograde ideology. This shows the candid nature of European policy, which is completely unsuited to the global upheavals taking place at the moment.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to draw your attention to the dramatic consequences of the massive release of chemical weapons and munitions into the English Channel, the North Sea and the Baltic Sea during the two world conflicts of the 20th century. Millions of tons of ammunition of all kinds have been dumped off the coast and are now a real danger. Specialists indicate that after more than a century of immersion, the sealing of metal envelopes is no longer ensured. According to experts and scientists, such an environmental and ecological disaster could lead to the elimination of all life – fauna and flora – for several decades or even more than a century. In addition, a project to set up a wind farm off the coast of Dunkirk is under consideration. This location, planned over an area of more than 50 square kilometres, can only come up against this issue, which is therefore becoming very urgent and particularly delicate. It should also be noted that part of the North Sea is classified as a Natura 2000 area. It is therefore essential that this problem is not ignored either by the Member States or by our institution. The sustainability of our ecosystem and the economic health of the northern half of Europe are at stake.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, like an anti-Midas, the European Commission is destroying everything it touches. Having destroyed our economy, our industry and our competitiveness, it is now seeking to undermine our vocational training policies. Le seul exploit dont la Commission pourra se targuer est celui de réussir à épuiser le pactole. So what can we expect from her when she looks at the training of workers? For example, the Traineeships Directive, whose work has just started: the Commission is not even able to propose correct definitions to define a trainee. In this situation, his proposal can only lead to the weakening of our training channels. Obviously, it's not about staying passive either. Nevertheless, it would be a good idea to entrust these files to competent people rather than to technocrats isolated from the outside world. When we know the Commission's tests for recruiting its own staff, we prefer not to involve it in the vocational training of the Member States.