Speeches

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, wake up! Donald Trump sends a clear signal to Europe, to us to rise to the challenge. For too long, you have sold off our sovereignty, ransacked our agriculture, our auto industry, and fractured our nations in the name of a globalist ideology disconnected from reality. You lecture Donald Trump who chose to defend the interests of the Americans. But when are you going to defend those of the Europeans? Wake up! Under the pretext of the Paris agreements, you imposed deadly restrictions that stifle and kill our industries, under the pretext of saving the planet, while China, the world's biggest polluter, remains a member of the Paris agreements without suffering the consequences. These agreements are only a trap into which Europe has allowed itself to be locked, an economic suicide for the benefit of powers that have no intention of playing the game. Wake up! This is the perfect opportunity to finally emancipate ourselves from the United States and take back our destiny, so that finally Europe no longer rhymes with decline.

Madam President, in France, on the 1ster Last January, the cleaver fell: 11 million motorists are excluded from major cities because of low-emission zones, which are also found elsewhere in Europe. This new social segregation punishes those who do not have the means to invest in an electric vehicle and yet need this means of transport to get around. After moving the working classes further and further away from the city centers, that wasn't enough for you. You now want to prevent them from going there, always with the same remark: “The poor are made to be very poor and the so-called polluters are made to live elsewhere.” To stop the EFAs is to stop this punitive ecology that sacrifices the most vulnerable citizens in the name of unrealistic promises. You are also attacking the car industry with CO fines2 and the end of thermal engines by 2035: above ground decisions that will necessarily have consequences on the price of vehicles. So my question is: When are you going to stop bugging motorists?

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in the preamble to Euratom, a treaty signed in 1957 that I have here, the Member States praised nuclear power. This treaty, full of common sense, you betrayed! For many years, a green obscurantism, carried in this Chamber, has been working hard to sabotage our nuclear power. These irresponsible people have weakened the energy security of our nations, condemning millions of citizens to pay a heavy price. Exploding bills, increased dependence on foreign energy and a dramatic decline in our energy sovereignty. Even today, a coalition of fanatical ideologues wants to exclude nuclear from any European funding, while the European Commission is pressuring France to impose on us its absurd and unachievable target of 44% renewable energy by 2030. Sixty-eight years ago, Europeans showed great intelligence. Try to do the same for once.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Commission is sorely lacking in vision and ambition: size of apples, shape of bottles, frequency of car turn signals, etc. While she cares about the accessory, she neglects the essential: millions of citizens with serious diseases, such as Alzheimer's, often forgotten about key political priorities. Alzheimer's disease is already the third leading cause of death in Europe and affects more than 14 million people. Much more than a public health problem, it is a human ordeal that forces us to rethink our priorities. Instead of producing mountains of unnecessary standards and regulations, the European Union should encourage ambitious cooperation between Member States and accelerate research on artificial intelligence with the aim of advancing early diagnosis and targeted therapies. Late, always late, as usual, in all areas: there is an urgent need to wake up, and the Commission should spend less time coercing and more time innovating. We do not want a Europe of health that tramples on our sovereignties, we want a useful Europe that strives to offer real hope to millions of families affected by disabilities.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, what is the point of talking about biodiversity if we sign agreements like the one with Mercosur that trample on it? As we loudly proclaim our common will to protect biodiversity at COP 16, some countries are preparing to sign a treaty that will not only sacrifice our farmers on the altar of unfair competition, but also accelerate massive deforestation, especially in the Amazon. To increase their agricultural exports to Europe, the countries concerned, including Brazil, will raze thousands of hectares of forests to turn them into fields, destroying unique ecosystems and accelerating climate change: an aberration when we know how threatened some animal species that live in these fragile environments are. How can we claim to defend the environment while signing an agreement that directly threatens it? Proof of your hypocrisy, if need be, you make absurd decisions, such as banning combustion engines in 2035, supposedly for ecological reasons, while signing an agreement with Mercosur that will increase greenhouse gas emissions. Let's act coherently for our farmers, to protect biodiversity: Let's reject Mercosur!

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a few days ago, in Châlons-en-Champagne, France, a woman lost an eye and a finger during an attack of unnamed barbarism. This is not an isolated fact because, unfortunately, women are experiencing this growing savagery in many European countries. And there are also many of you here who close your eyes. You turn a blind eye to the growing insecurity in our cities. You close your eyes to all those women who no longer dare to go out alone at night. You close your eyes to all these young women who put on tracksuits over their skirts to avoid being harassed on public transport or on the street. You turn a blind eye to the Islamism that plagues our societies and disregards women’s rights by spreading an ideology of intimidation and submission. You close your eyes to these trampled freedoms, to these broken lives. It is time for the European Union to take an interest in all those women whose lives change overnight because they have met a repeat offender, whose place was normally in prison, or a man who had nothing to do on European soil. This injustice is simply no longer bearable. So act, or remain complicit.

Mr President, hell is always paved with good intentions. Under the guise of ecological transition, the European Commission wants to impose the craziest ideas on us. How not to laugh when you associate terms ecological and social and then invent one of the most discriminatory policies of the 21st century: low-emission zones? You want cities to gradually close to motorists, as if they were responsible for all the ills of the Earth. A real social injustice, these highly excluded areas, as well as the ban on thermal engines in 2035, reveal your impotence. Prohibit, prohibit, prohibit: you only have that word in your mouth. But it is obviously always the same ones who toast: the working and middle classes, who cannot do without their cars. Increase hydrogen research, develop safe and efficient public transport, develop localism and short circuits: This is a truly ambitious policy that would make our cities greener, more social and more prosperous. Basically, I believe that the first environmental policy to be put in place is to throw your ideas in the trash.

Mr President, in Reims, in the Red Cross district, it is more and more often gunfire that rocks the nights of families. Drug trafficking is a nightmare for millions of Europeans. However, the European Union remains passive. Bloody account settlements, arson and mortar attacks on law enforcement: this violence becomes the daily life of citizens taken hostage by traffickers. What is the EU doing to address this threat? Not much, even though increased cooperation between Member States would be justified and useful here for the time being. Lax policies have turned our continent into a playground for traffickers. How can we accept being one of the main markets for cocaine and cannabis in the world, given the disastrous consequences of these substances for the health and safety of our citizens? It is time for this institution to take its responsibilities to protect Europeans and to strengthen the security of our borders – even if the restoration of national borders is another imperative. Zero tolerance is the only response to this scourge.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the situation in the European car industry is unfortunately a perfect example of political incompetence. With numerical targets chosen at random or by drawing lots, you know, and standards cascading without impact analysis, the ban on thermal cars in 2035 will only lead to a vast economic and social rampage. It will be a social trash, because you want to deprive the freedom of movement of people who are sometimes up to the euro and can not buy an electric car. I'll tell you one thing: There will be nothing left to decarbonize if you wipe out our auto industry. With your above ground edicts, you rolled out the red carpet to the Chinese builders. Locked in your ideological certainties, you have ignored the cries of alarm of European industrialists and have jeopardized our industrial flagships. Forbidden is the weapon of the weak. Let's invest in research and help our European manufacturers. Let's live up to the challenge. There is still time to break this deadlock. Remind yourself of your ban on thermal engines.

Mr Canfin, you continue to support the Green Deal, despite the carnage it causes for our industry. I fear that we are no longer in the political debate, but in your fantasies disconnected from reality. You want to ban everything you dislike and impose your ideology off the ground, but at what cost? That of Europeans who will pay for the salty addition of this punitive ecology. You have changed your mind about nuclear power, it seems to me. Do the same today. It's time to stop sacrificing our auto industry with your fads that are hurting people.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Commission now cares about farmers after persecuting them for years. European agriculture is being undermined by the proliferation of droughts and extreme weather events. Drought-specific losses to the agricultural sector are around €5 billion per year. In France, sales are forecast to fall by 10% in the wine sector, particularly in my region of Champagne. These events are being exploited by those pursuing an ideological agenda that places an excessive and bureaucratic burden on our farmers through a deadly Green Deal. Rather than condemning those who make our ecosystems and terroirs live and shine, we must support the adaptation of farms. If Europe still wants to claim to defend its farmers, it must stop crushing them under the weight of unrealistic regulations and offer them the concrete means to overcome climate challenges. Beautiful speeches do not feed people, only deeds.