Speeches

Madam President, blockchain and cryptocurrencies were born from a simple idea: restoring control to individuals, enhancing transparency and ensuring equitable access to open systems. Decentralization, transparency and security are therefore the fundamental values of this revolution. But today, blockchain goes far beyond financial transactions. It revolutionizes data management, traceability and digital trust by transcending borders and calling for global cooperation. However, with this immense potential also come challenges: fraud, unequal access and lack of clear regulations. This is where our collective responsibility lies. We need to build global standards, not to stifle innovation, but to frame and amplify it. These standards must therefore 1) secure users; 2) Preserve decentralization; 3) fostering an environment conducive to innovation. Europe, with initiatives such as the MiCA Regulation, has shown that regulation, although partial, is possible. It must therefore now act as a bridge to initiate a global dialogue. Blockchain is a unique opportunity to build fairer and fairer systems. Together, we can steer this revolution towards a more open and prosperous future.

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am here to denounce the Digital Services Act, the DSA, which, under the guise of combating disinformation, institutionalises state censorship at European level. Indeed, this text flouts one of the fundamental principles of our democracies: freedom of expression, the once sacred principle that the DSA now seems to want to bury, sacrifice on the altar of an official truth, not always authentic, imposed by technocrats. By muzzling dissenting voices, this regulation does not protect citizens, it infantilizes them, it deprives them of their capacity for discernment. All censorship is an admission. We only gag the mouth that tells the truth. With the DSA, the European Union is only admitting its fear of the truth by constantly imposing ever more oppressive control tools. Also, I urge you to reject this authoritarian drift. Rather than censoring, let us defend the rights of European citizens to express themselves freely, without fear or institutional muzzle.

Madam President, on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, it is essential to recall the following: this convention makes it clear that childhood is a sanctuary, that the protection of children from all forms of exploitation and abuse is a fundamental principle. However, we are now seeing worrying initiatives in this area, sometimes encouraged by public institutions that tend to promote so-called sexuality education from an early age. Thus, under the guise of raising awareness and combating discrimination, some of these actions risk trivialising inappropriate content or breaking the framework of protection that we must guarantee to children. These practices, far from being educational in reality, can therefore be assimilated to a form of exploitation and ideological manipulation. Children's sexuality must not be exploited in any way. So what is the European Commission doing to ensure that so-called sexuality education remains age-appropriate and respectful of children's innocence? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. What is the Commission doing to ensure that no piecemeal initiative can undermine children's healthy development or integrity? Nothing. Again, absolutely nothing. And what is the Commission doing to ensure that these abuses are not financed or promoted by European funds? Nothing. Over and over again. Absolutely nothing.

Mr President, Europe is peace. The formula is repeated at will by all seasoned Europeanists. Still, it's a lie. Indeed, today, the European Union is pushing for war. The European Union is trying to federate, through the war in Ukraine, and is interfering in the defence policy of the Member States in defiance of their sovereignty. After creating a post of European Commissioner for Defence, the European Commission is also overstepping its powers: it wants to withdraw EUR 400 billion from the budget, earmarked for the development of regions in difficulty, to be used to strengthen the military-industrial complex of the Member States and to provide military assistance to Ukraine. Is it democratic when the Commission decides, on its own, to drag all European citizens into a war against Russia? Of course not! Europe, normally, is peace. But with Mme von der Leyen at its head, Europe is war!

Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there are serious problems with the EU budget. It is exorbitant, inefficient, complex, not very transparent and not conducive to scrutiny by our fellow citizens. I have to remind you that it works almost entirely thanks to the taxes of Europeans. I stress the need and urgency to reform the EU budget. But I also stress the importance of reducing it by at least 30%, of making all funds accountable and subjecting them to a full discharge procedure – including funds outside the multiannual financial framework –, of subjecting the European Investment Bank to the audit of the European Court of Auditors, of phasing out all funding with intangible – and therefore almost impracticable – objectives, of setting the amount and envelopes of draft amending budgets during the financial year, of prohibiting the mid-term revision of the envelope of the multiannual financial framework, of phasing out the new EU own resources, of setting the maximum ceiling of funds borrowed by the EU under each multiannual financial framework, of ending transfers to the EU and of acting through regional cooperation hubs.

Mr President, the European Union and its Member States have together provided civil and military assistance to Ukraine, amounting to €118 billion since the start of the war and €43 billion this year alone. However, Ukraine’s financing needs exceed the International Monetary Fund’s projections for an end to conflict in 2024. The European Union is therefore proposing, by the end of 2024, new financial assistance in the form of a loan, amounting to EUR 35 billion, to which approximately EUR 40 billion will have to be added again in 2025: a veritable barrel of Danaida, loans that we know are difficult to repay – if at all. While, in principle, we are in favour of civil aid to Ukraine, the various texts and communications of the European Union never address the end of the conflict or the advent of a diplomatic solution. How is it that peace talks are not a condition of this financial assistance? Wouldn't support for peace and not for war be the most economical and humane solution? Moreover, at a time when France has been put in the excessive deficit procedure by the European Union, when inflation is affecting the peoples of Europe and when the European Union is wondering how to close the next budget, does not a well-ordered charity start by itself?

Mr President, under the guise of utterly misguided humanism and false good feelings, politicians who are traitors to the peoples of Europe are promoting a fanatical ideology which they have set up as dogma: immigrationism. Unfortunately, this desire for altruistic suicide imposed on Europeans has concrete consequences on a daily basis. The city of Le Mans, France, is a sad example. Immigration has more than doubled in 15 years and, with it, crimes and misdemeanours. Increase in theft by more than 300%, increase in rape by more than 500% and increase in knife attacks by 1,000%. Yes, ten times more than before the arrival on our soil of these delinquent foreigners, these criminals imported at the expense of the Europeans you call "migrants". The blood of the victims of this abomination is on the hands of the Members of the European Commission who ordered this submersion and on the hands of the Members who voted for it.

Mr President, ‘God laughs at men who deplore the effects whose causes they cherish’, said the writer Bossuet. This maxim is reminiscent of the catastrophic record of your industrial policy, if it ever existed. In your era, we will have known everything: Europe’s digital vassalage, its manufacturing dependence on emerging countries, and now the erasure of car civilisation. You are scrambling to impose the all-electric route on the entire industry in 2035, at the risk of seeing many parts of the continent disappear. Volkswagen has already announced plans to close plants. The Renault Group is sounding the alarm about the thousands of jobs at risk, such as at Valeo in Sarthe, where the automotive supplier will close its site, leaving more than 250 employees behind. So my question will be simple: How many factory closures and massive redundancies will it take for you to finally challenge your declining policy?

Mr President, I wish to defend Valeo and the employees of the La Suze-sur-Sarthe site who will lose their jobs because of uncontrolled globalisation and cascading relocations. On July 15, the automotive supplier announced the sale of its plant located 20 kilometers from Le Mans. 270 employees are now the victims of your electric dogmatism and intra-European social dumping, since the site's activities are transferred to Spain and Poland, where labor is cheaper. Less expensive and more efficient solutions than the thermal ban exist. I will fight to save our auto industry and our territories. The employees of the Valeo-La Suze factory have an inalienable right to keep their work. The French state, the largest shareholder in the group, can and must save all the employees of the Valeo factory.

Mr President, Mr Vice-President, the recent report on European agriculture is a disappointment. It does not respond to the urgent challenges facing our farmers. Loué's chicken is drowned under Ukrainian chicken. The red of the meadows, the Sarth breed of cattle, is ignored. The EU has promised to help smallholders, but where is its aid? Why open our doors wide to Ukrainian chicken when its traceability is questionable? It's a killing of our producers. Despite protests and calls for the safeguard clause to be applied, Brussels remains deaf even as it thinks of activating the emergency brake on sugar and eggs from Ukraine. The EU promotes animal welfare and imposes binding standards on our farmers, but favours countries with lower health, social and environmental standards. Mirror clauses should be mandatory in all free trade agreements that are both detrimental to our farmers and to our consumers, who end up eating food of poor quality and potentially harmful to their health. Last year you promised fair prices, more subsidies for small farms, less bureaucracy and protection from unfair competition. We do not accept that agriculture should be abandoned. You have the power to act, we have the right not to give up.