Political repression and humanitarian situation in Cuba (debate)
Thank you, dear colleague, for accepting the blue card. You have in your mouth only the words "suspension", "sanction". I'm trying to understand, and I'm trying to understand why you're in that logic, when the first measure... You have no words, and I would like to understand why you have no words on the lifting of the blockade that has afflicted Cuba for more than six decades. Because that's the lever, you're talking about the lever, but that's the major lever. And our assembly is totally above ground. Every year, the United Nations Assembly adopts a resolution calling for the lifting of the blockade. Why are you here not making this legitimate request of the Cuban people?
EU governance under pressure – institutional responses to global challenges (debate)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, Europe is facing an increasingly brutal geopolitical environment. In this context, discussing the EU’s capacity to act in the institutional framework is important. But this debate must not be confiscated by technocrats. This is the first thing. Because it is not just a question of how the EU can decide faster, but of what it decides, for whom it decides and for what political project. And let us be clear: your Europe, Commissioner, you who do not listen, that of free and undistorted competition, that of the market at the service of industrialists, that of social rights considered as obstacles, is the opposite of our Europe, that of the sharing of wealth, fundamental rights and social justice. No false debate between us. Yes, the EU must be able to act faster in the face of international crises, foreign interference and threats to democracy, but not at the cost of weakening democratic control over fundamental rights and imposing more and more liberal policies. If qualified majority can achieve social progress, then let’s discuss it. But let me, in the current configuration of the EU, strongly doubt this. In the meantime, we do not want a general questioning of unanimity on all subjects. The most sensitive choices, for example in foreign policy, must remain politically assumed by states and democratically controlled by peoples. The same requirement applies to enlargement, which will be a success only if it is at the service of the people, to improving the living conditions of all, not to become a tool for generalised competition, social dumping or a downward revision of European standards. This means no enlargement at any price, no enlargement that organises the exploitation of workers, weakens trade union rights, collective bargaining, health and safety at work or public services. Reception of new states must only take place around an ambitious social pillar. In a nutshell: no European power without social justice, no enlargement without an ambitious social project, no strong Europe without fundamental rights.
One-minute speeches on matters of political importance
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Axel was sixteen years old. He died in June 2025 during a compulsory second general internship in a company. Young trainees or apprentices are particularly exposed to accidents and join the silent procession of workers who have died at work or at work. Every day in France, between two and three employees die at work. Every year in Europe, more than 170,000 people die from occupational diseases. Behind the numbers are broken lives, bereaved families, traumatized colleagues. On 28 April, World Day for Safety and Health at Work, we must affirm that death at work is not inevitable, but the consequence of political choices. It is the result of a model that continues to function through the exploitation of bodies and minds, which considers training in safety, health protection, improvement of working conditions or controls of labor regulations by inspections as obstacles to capitalist accumulation. For Axel, for all those who, every year, are victims of work, we continue the fight to change this world.
Global Gateway – past impacts and future orientation (debate)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, on 28 July 1885 Jules Ferry defended in the National Assembly the foundations of colonial policy through the need for opportunities for French industry. 141 years later, nothing has changed. Global Gateway is a neocolonial instrument serving your commercial and geostrategic interests. It gives European multinationals the opportunity to arrogate to themselves public contracts linked to the development of large infrastructures in the so-called "global South" countries and, ultimately, to allow the predation of the natural resources of these states. The private sector is engulfing, public debts are increasing, populations are pauperizing: these are the ingredients allowing the West to maintain its domination. It is not the definition of multilateralism and development policy that we carry. The European Union must revise its strategy within a framework of cooperation based on respect for the sovereignty of States, access to food and energy self-sufficiency, the sharing of wealth and respect for the fundamental rights of peoples.
International Day of Education, fighting inequalities in access to education (debate)
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, public schools are one of the most effective instruments for combating social inequalities. Yet a methodical sabotage of this precious tool is orchestrated by liberals wishing, as always, to reserve education to the elites alone. In France, for example, a few days ago, the ruling macrono-socialist coalition voted to cut 4,000 professorships. This is a new burden on teachers, their students, who are already suffering the chronic underfunding of their institutions and the collapse of their real wages. Class closures are increasing, inequalities in access to quality education are increasing, whether in urban or rural areas. In Europe, these observations are made in particular on internships, which are widespread at any age, and whose quality is most often based on an interpersonal network, that of parents. During these traineeship periods, trainees are subject to risks to their health, physical safety, but also mental health, including sexual and gender-based violence. That is why, in this House, I am fighting for an EU-wide right for trainees to withdraw from a dangerous work situation in order to be fully protected from these risks.
A new action plan to implement the European Pillar of Social Rights (debate)
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the question raised by our comrade Li Andersson highlights the reality that workers live every day. Europe is going through profound changes, but the social response, when it exists, always comes after the break - too weak, too late, too fragmented. Market Europe sanctifies competitiveness and justifies, tolerates precariousness. As an immediate consequence, the cost of living explodes while wages stagnate, working conditions deteriorate, poverty sets in, including for those in employment or housing. We are suffering the product of a model where competitiveness comes before dignity, where flexibility is the key word, where budgetary discipline serves as a pretext for social austerity, and where the margins of capitalists are better protected than the social rights of citizens. Commissioner, enough communications. We want binding rules, applicable in practice, monitored on the ground by independent labour inspectorates, with a European budget and funding conditional on respect for social rights, wages and health at work, not on the profitability of a few. And I take this opportunity just to say that the extreme right, which continues to refuse blue cardsWhile they claim to defend workers' rights, they are impostors.
Impact of the geopolitical situation on European patients and their access to medicines (debate)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, 39: this is the percentage of French people indicating that they had experienced shortages of medicines in 2024. France is obviously no exception; 21 Member States report experiencing the same phenomenon. The fault of the capitalist laissez-faire that reigns supreme here, in Parliament and in the EU. How would it be otherwise, moreover, in a Europe that abandons the major pharmaceutical groups? all powers, leaving them to relocate to the other side of the world and knowingly organising shortages of medicines to make more and more profits, leaving workers behind and increasing our dependence on third countries? But how would we treat ourselves tomorrow, Commissioner, if there were tensions with India or China, when these two countries together make 80% of the world’s generics? The European Union, on this subject as on the others, must change its matrix. The future of medicine, whatever the geopolitical context, requires industrial planning, with a public cluster of medicines, the relocation of essential medicines, or the control and strict social and environmental conditionality of business aid. This is what is at stake in the popular struggles we are waging with La France Insoumise.
Breeders' protests following a lumpy-skin-disease outbreak in France: implications of the EU approach on sanitary and on animal health (debate)
Mr McNamara, I hear that you are calling on your government in Ireland. So I have a question for you, because in fact you are in the same group, Renew, as the French macronists, who are not here tonight in this Chamber. They who, in France, conduct a criminal policy, they who conduct a policy that puts down livestock. Just one question, Mr. McNamara: Do you know where the French macronists went?
One-minute speeches on matters of political importance
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is criminal not to act when every day in Europe twelve workers, three of them in France, die at work. Together with my colleague Marina Measurement, we have built since the beginning of this mandate – together with trade unionists, labour inspectors and associations of victims’ families – a zero-death-to-work roadmap. Everywhere we present it, the testimonies are the same: work uses, fatigues, injures bodies and minds and, sometimes, too often, kills. Accidents at work or occupational diseases are never ‘bad luck’. They are the systemic result of a lack of political action and will that allows capital to continue accumulating more and more. Because, today as yesterday, health and safety at work is still considered a cost by the vast majority of employers. The proof is here, with the failure of the European Commission’s ‘vision zero’, which followed a 2020 resolution and was to eliminate deaths and reduce occupational diseases by 2030. So yes, inaction is criminal.
Institutional consequences of the EU enlargement negotiations (debate)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, as we say in this Chamber, enlargement will be a success only if it is at the service of the peoples and the improvement of living conditions, and not only seen as a geopolitical tool at the service of war logics that are light years away from the aspirations of the peoples of Europe. But your European Union boils down, in fact, to a set of means allowing free and undistorted competition, at the service of the predation of the big capitalist groups and an imperialist political vision. A model in which the social question is still and always absent. However, the reception of new states should be conceived and realized around an ambitious common pillar of social rights and collective guarantees for workers: collective bargaining, massive increases in wages and paid leave, strengthening of social legislation, in particular with regard to respect for health and safety at work, increased means for labour inspectorates, real equality between women and men at work. Suffice it to say that we are constantly moving away from this objective, as evidenced by the reactionary course of the European Commission and its relays in Parliament, which are preparing to bury the duty of vigilance of multinationals. Welcoming new states should also make it possible to protect workers' mobility by ending the status of posted work, so that workers benefit from the full social rights of the country where they are employed. This is a way to end the practices of social and fiscal dumping that are destroying the lives of millions of workers and their families. Enlargement should be a lever for building a fairer continent, where social rights and democratic checks and balances are the rule, and which rejects widespread competition, dumping and corruption. That is not the purpose of the report that is being proposed to us today.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Latin America and the Caribbean are once again victims of the hypocrisy of the European Parliament. Under the guise of a supposedly fair desire for partnership, the European Union is setting itself up as the spearhead of neo-colonialism. For your will is, as yesterday, to facilitate access to the strategic natural resources of this region for the big companies of our continent, at the expense of the peoples and the protection of the environment. We will not be silent to denounce your predatory and extractivist logics, your destructive and Atlanticist vision of geopolitical power relations. You are instrumentalizing the issue of human rights by omitting all the abuses emanating from governments on the right of the political spectrum. What about Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, where the separation of powers and the action of civil society, NGOs and trade unions are under attack by the State? The people of South America and the Caribbean deserve better than this low-level bargain. Other partnerships are possible, based on respect for the sovereignty of peoples, solidarity and the protection of human rights and the environment.
Madam President, it is a festival of punctures that you are aligning, Mr Valet. It's fortunately a one-man show which lasts barely a minute, because it is disastrous. You do not have a word, Mr Valet - or worse, you offer full bail - for the Bukele regime in El Salvador that you idealise; A regime condemned by Amnesty International and other organisations as an authoritarian and reactionary regime, where fundamental freedoms are not guaranteed. This is certainly the model that you, M.me Le Pen and Mr. Bardella, want to go to France. We are human rights and freedoms, and you are against that model, Mr Valet.
Situation in Colombia after the wave of recent terrorist attacks (debate)
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Colombia has been subjected for several months to a wave of terrorist attacks in connection with drug trafficking targeting civilians and the military. We condemn these attacks. We stand with and support the families of the victims, as we support President Petro and his government in their fight against drug trafficking. We welcome the implementation of a policy of total peace based on respect for human rights and the need to address the root causes of crime, including poverty and social exclusion. The indecent political instrumentalisation of terrorism for electoral purposes by the right and the far right must stop. Rather than tossing the opprobrium in the hope that the historic pact will fall in 2026, the opposition should put its energy into implementing the UN Secretary-General's recommendations related to the peace agreement. We call for action by the European Union to ensure that this agreement is fully implemented. The Colombian people must be protected from mafia and predatory logics, the only way they can enjoy their tranquility.
One-minute speeches on matters of political importance
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the face of austerity, liberal policies and the authoritarian course that is taking place among the citizens of Europe, the time is ripe for the emergence of a new spring of peoples. Everywhere, popular mobilizations call into question the hegemony of the powerful and the regressions they seek to make us suffer to the tie. In France, the Bayrou government has just fallen. This is just the beginning! From Wednesday, around the slogan "Block everything", it is in the street that workers, youth of the country, social and trade union movements will meet. The French people will get the fall of the Republican monarch Emmanuel Macron. Then comes the time of the censorship of Ursula von der Leyen and her Commission of lobbyists in the service of the grabbers. For it is in the practical experience of struggle that the spark of the revolutionary consciousness of the exploited is ignited. Because, yesterday as today, "he who does not move does not feel his chains".
Institutional and political implications of the EU enlargement process and global challenges (debate)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, enlargement will be a success only if it is at the service of the peoples and the improvement of living conditions, and not only seen as a geopolitical tool at the service of your bloc-versus-bloc logic, a warlike logic that is light years away from the aspirations of the peoples of Europe. The key to the success of enlargement will be first and foremost a more democratic Europe, with institutions at the service of citizens and not a market at the service of industrialists. But, let us say it from the outset, your European Union today can be summed up as a set of means allowing free and undistorted competition in the service of an imperialist vision. Our Europe, the one we defend, carries a project of peace, wealth sharing, democracy, welcome and humanity. At a time when the extreme right are arbitrating the decisions of our institution, we can only see the regressions on all sides, acclaimed by the Conservatives and the Liberals. This is the Europe you are proposing to the peoples of our continent, that of climate catastrophe and widespread poverty, that of corruption and discrimination, in short, a union like Orbán and Nawrocki. The reception of new states must be based on an ambitious common pillar of social rights in which social democracy, and in particular collective bargaining, must play their full role. Otherwise, it is the exploitation of workers, the at least so-called social and environmental race that will prevail. This requires that pre-accession aid also be used to build this common Europe, with strong, transparent, honest institutions, effective inspections and independent judicial systems. Enlargement must be a lever for building a fairer continent, where social rights and democratic checks and balances are the rule, which rejects widespread competition, social dumping and corruption. In a word, no enlargement without an ambitious social project.
Assassination attempt on Senator Miguel Uribe and the threat to the democratic process and peace in Colombia (debate)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Colombia is preparing to enter a sequence of high importance for the future of the country, particularly with regard to peacekeeping and the continuation of the citizens' revolution implemented since 2022. The assassination attempt on Miguel Uribe, a potential presidential candidate, is a heinous act that must be denounced. In a democracy, only the sovereign people must be able to choose their representatives. The use of hired killers is an unnamed cowardice. Colombian political life has been marked for decades by these political assassinations, which also affect human rights and environmental defenders. But this assassination attempt must not be exploited by some to curb the ambition of social reforms, including that of labour law desired by the historic pact. I would like to welcome the action of President Petro, who strongly condemned the attack, strengthened the security of presidential candidates and encouraged the investigation conducted by the Attorney General to ensure the security and proper conduct of the electoral process.
Madam President, Commissioner, this is terrific, terribly hypocritical! Mme von der Leyen and Macron are standing up for academic and political freedoms by welcoming American scientists, for example, who have been persecuted for their commitment to Palestine. They are the same ones who, here, are bogged down in convolutions so as not to denounce the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The same people here who anathematize activists and students denouncing the IDF massacres; The same people who here accuse anyone criticizing Netanyahu's far-right government of anti-Semitism. Since Macron took office, France's higher education budget per student has fallen by 15%. A methodical destruction of the public university is taking place before our eyes. Universities are no longer able to complete their budgets and the precariousness of staff and students is reaching record levels. Enough of this hypocrisy and these obscene communication plans! We will always defend political and academic freedoms and the means necessary for their expression, just as we will always defend the reception of refugees, regardless of their origin.
The EU's response to the Israeli government's plan to seize the Gaza Strip, ensuring effective humanitarian support and the liberation of hostages (debate)
Mr. Leggeri, you didn't hear anything here, you didn't listen. You have not heard the President of Slovenia say it here in this Chamber. In everything you have said, not a word for the people of Gaza, not a word for the massacres that are taking place there and for the genocide that is taking place there. This is what the National Gathering is all about. Selective humanity is your daily lot: It's a disgrace. History will judge you and your friends, Mr. Leggeri.
The EU's response to the Israeli government's plan to seize the Gaza Strip, ensuring effective humanitarian support and the liberation of hostages (debate)
Mr Guetta, your macroist friends in France have, for more than a year and a half, given their unconditional support to the massacres taking place in Palestine and Gaza. Today, as the winds turn – because, tomorrow, perhaps, history will judge those who were complicit in this genocide – I see that opinions are changing and so are yours. In this case, will you really turn in the direction of history that catches up with you, ask here for the immediate suspension of the association agreement and no longer let Mr Netanyahu cross French airspace, for example? Go to the end. Be consistent. Turn, but turn really.
An urgent assessment of the applicability of the Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement (PDCA) with Cuba (debate)
Thank you, Mr Blaha, for your intervention. When I hear our other colleague react, I say to myself that the right wing in the European Parliament really has two double standards: a policy of migration within its borders that it wants to ban and a policy of migration for Cubans that it wants to allow. Really, you're ridiculous!